 Growth of modern service providers for the African agricultural sector: An insight from a public irrigation scheme in GhanaHiroyuki Takeshima, John Agandin and Shashi Kolavalli No 1678, IFPRI discussion papers from International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) Abstract: This paper describes how modern service providers have emerged in the African agricultural sector, a subject that has been vastly understudied. The paper looks at providers of modern rice mills, power tillers, combine harvesters, and production services at a highly productive rice irrigation scheme in Ghana. These service providers earn net profits that are greater than the profits they would likely achieve from simply expanding rice production without investing in respective machines, suggesting that higher returns primarily induce the emergence of these modern providers. Surpluses and experiences from their years of rice production are likely to have provided the primary finance and knowledge required for entry. The service providers emerged by exploiting both the economies of scale and the economies of scope, keeping rice production as the primary source of income, instead of specializing only in service provisions. Key policy implications are also discussed. Keywords: power tools; mills; agricultural sector; rice; combine harvesters; irrigation schemes; Ghana; Africa; Western Africa; Sub-Saharan Africa (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fpr:ifprid:1678 Access Statistics for this paper More papers in IFPRI discussion papers from International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) Contact information at EDIRC. |
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