Can Better Targeting Improve The Effectiveness Of Ghanas Fertilizer Subsidy Program Lessons From Ghana And Other Countries In Africa South Of The Sahara
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| Author | : Houssou, Nazaire |
| Publisher | : Intl Food Policy Res Inst |
| Total Pages | : 36 |
| Release | : 2017-02-10 |
| Genre | : Political Science |
| ISBN | : |
Despite improvements to the implementation regime of Ghana’s fertilizer subsidy program, this paper shows that considerable challenges remain in ensuring that the subsidy is targeted to farmers who need fertilizer the most. Currently, larger-scale and wealthier farmers are the main beneficiaries of subsidized fertilizer even though the stated goal is to target smallholder farmers with fertilizer subsidies. The experience of other African countries suggests that the effectiveness of fertilizer subsidies can improve with effective targeting of resource-poor smallholders. However, targeting smallholder farmers entails significant transaction costs and may even be infeasible in some cases. Faced with such challenges, Ghanaian policy makers must ponder the question of how to improve the targeting of input subsidy programs in the country. Further research is needed to identify more cost-effective approaches for achieving the goal of targeting.
| Author | : Houssou, Nazaire |
| Publisher | : Intl Food Policy Res Inst |
| Total Pages | : 44 |
| Release | : 2017-03-17 |
| Genre | : Political Science |
| ISBN | : |
This paper assesses whether fertilizer subsidy programs can be better targeted to resource-poor farmers using the case of Ghana and proxy means test approaches. Past fertilizer subsidy programs in the country have not been particularly targeted to the poor, even as targeting poor and smallholder farmers has become key in the program implementation guidelines. As a result, many poor farmers have not benefited from past programs. Our results show that targeting approaches based on proxy means tests that use the correlates of poverty to select beneficiary farmers can potentially improve the poverty outreach and costeffectiveness of Ghana’s fertilizer subsidy programs. Therefore, we propose that the proxy means test approach should be considered for implementing Ghana’s fertilizer subsidy programs, first in a pilot project involving a few communities, and later, if found successful, in a full-scale program.
| Author | : Kyle, Jordan |
| Publisher | : Intl Food Policy Res Inst |
| Total Pages | : 58 |
| Release | : 2017-12-06 |
| Genre | : Political Science |
| ISBN | : |
This paper examines the fertilizer subsidy program in Nepal from two different angles, both important for policy makers in the country. First, it analyzes who is benefiting from the program, and second, it examines how farmers rank the importance of public spending on fertilizer subsidies compared with other potential public investments. Whereas the former question is important for judging whether the program is meeting its objectives, the latter is essential to understanding the scope for reform, in particular the extent to which we could expect citizens to resist reforms to the subsidy program. We draw on these analyses as well as on examples from other countries to make policy recommendations to improve program implementation.
| Author | : Pauw, Karl |
| Publisher | : Intl Food Policy Res Inst |
| Total Pages | : 30 |
| Release | : 2021-04-13 |
| Genre | : Political Science |
| ISBN | : |
This report examines the evolution of farm input subsidy programs in Ghana, with a focus on the Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) initiative, which was introduced in 2017 and replaced the Fertilizer Subsidy Program (FSP) that was launched in 2008. A review of PFJ implementation reports and other official data sources reveal that information on general program features, such as beneficiary numbers, subsidized input quantities, and program budget is readily available and useful for understanding program design and implementation. National crop production estimates are also reported annually, and these provide evidence of rapid output growth in the agricultural sector, especially within the cereals subsector. However, the implementing agency, the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA), lacks a system for closely monitoring and reporting PFJ program impacts at farm-level. Consequently, most of the published information on the marginal contribution of PFJ to national crop output is based on simulations, which make strong assumptions about seeding rates, fertilizer use by crop, and input use efficiency on beneficiary farms. With this drawback in mind, these simulations show that PFJ contributed substantially to crop output growth, a result which is not implausible considering the quantities of inputs provided, but one that requires further on-farm validation. Recommendations are offered around beneficiary targeting, interpretation of employment impacts, and the need for regular monitoring of farm-level impacts, all of which will help improve transparency of the program.
| Author | : Nazziwa-Nviiri, Lydia |
| Publisher | : Intl Food Policy Res Inst |
| Total Pages | : 36 |
| Release | : 2017-02-17 |
| Genre | : Political Science |
| ISBN | : |
In the context of a growing population in an already densely populated area, agricultural yields will need to increase without putting additional stress on the environment. The adoption of modern inputs by smallholders is an important ingredient of agricultural transformation. In this study we explore plot-level, household-level, and institutional-level characteristics associated with agricultural technology adoption behavior among smallholder farmers. The aim is to uncover correlations that can guide the design of policies and incentives that are likely to increase adoption. We explicitly differentiate between fixed costs that are likely to affect the decision to use the technology and variable costs that are more relevant for the decision regarding use intensity. In addition, we examine how the importance of each of these characteristics differs with asset status. To do so, we use data from about 1,880 potato plots cultivated by 500 randomly selected potato growers in southwestern Uganda. We first categorize households into poorly endowed and well-endowed asset classes based on their access to productive assets. We then estimate double-hurdle models for take-up and use intensity of fertilizer for each group. The results show that the factors associated with the decision to use fertilizer are often different from those associated with the decision about how much fertilizer to use and that the characteristics correlated with fertilizer adoption differ between asset-poor and asset-rich farmers. For instance, asset-poor female-headed households are less likely to use fertilizer, but if they do, they use more of it than male-headed households. Our results also suggest fertilizer packaging and distribution are important factors in fertilizer adoption decisions due to their impact on costs related to both indivisibilities and uncertainty about the quality. We derive a range of policy recommendations.
| Author | : Aragie, Emerta |
| Publisher | : Intl Food Policy Res Inst |
| Total Pages | : 35 |
| Release | : |
| Genre | : Political Science |
| ISBN | : |
Growth in Ghana during the last decade has not translated into meaningful benefits for rural households who experienced an increase in poverty in recent years. This reflects, among other factors, the relatively weak performance of the agricultural sector and its general lack of competitiveness. The government has identified agriculture as the backbone of its development strategy and is committed to address the numerous challenges faced by the sector. However, it is likely to encounter fiscal constraints in a postdevelopment assistance era. It is therefore crucial to understand the trade-offs associated with alternative spending strategies. In this study we develop an economywide modeling framework for analyzing returns to public spending in support of agriculture. The model is used to evaluate the effect of compositional shifts in spending given marginal returns to different areas of investment. Our analysis focuses especially on extension services and input subsidies as two important components of the government’s agricultural development strategy. The objective of the study is to advise policymakers on which spending strategy is the most likely to contribute to government’s development goals, such as poverty reduction or economic growth. We find that a doubling of the share of agriculture in total public budget would accelerate agricultural growth to somewhere between 7.6% and 8.6% against the business-as-usual scenario of about 3.5%. The level of growth achieved depends on the types of policies that are favored. In the examples presented here, we show that an input subsidy-oriented spending strategy may yield significant benefits in the short run (1–5 years), and especially in an expansionary fiscal environment, but investments in effective extensive services are more sustainable and rewarding in the medium- to longer-run (6–10 years), especially when public resources are more constrained. These results demonstrate why short-term political goals might result in policy choices that are suboptimal from a longer-term development perspective.
| Author | : Tang, Xiaoyang |
| Publisher | : Intl Food Policy Res Inst |
| Total Pages | : 32 |
| Release | : 2017-03-31 |
| Genre | : Political Science |
| ISBN | : |
This paper uses Ghana as a case study to illustrate the extent to which Chinese manufacturing firms are driving manufacturing in an African country. Through a combination of desktop and field research, the author finds that the total number of Chinese manufacturing investments in Ghana indeed increased during past decade, but quite a few projects have been abandoned or not implemented because of the unfavorable investment environment. Small and large manufacturing projects can be found in different sectors, such as plastics, steel, pharmaceuticals, and others. All of the manufacturing investments target local or regional markets, either taking advantage of local raw materials or seeing opportunities in a market with little competition. Transitioning from trading to manufacturing investment and clustering are identified as the main patterns by which Chinese investors establish themselves in Ghana. Chinese firms source simple raw materials from local suppliers but import industrial supplies from abroad. Learning from Chinese business models, a few local businessmen have started their own manufacturing projects, mostly in the plastics recycling sector, but a lack of capital appears to keep some local players from moving up the value chain. Ghana’s weak economy itself is limiting technology transfer and local linkages between Chinese firms and Ghanaians.
| Author | : Abate, Gashaw T. |
| Publisher | : Intl Food Policy Res Inst |
| Total Pages | : 44 |
| Release | : 2017-03-24 |
| Genre | : Political Science |
| ISBN | : |
Adoption of quality-enhancing technologies is often driven largely by farmers’ expected returns from these technologies. Without proper grades, standards, and certification systems, however, farmers may remain uncertain about the actual financial return associated with their quality-enhancing investments. This report summarizes the outcomes of a short video-based randomized training intervention on wheat quality measurement and collective marketing among 15,000 wheat farmers in Ethiopia. Our results suggest that the intervention led to significant changes in farmers’ commercialization behaviors—namely, it prompted farmers to adopt behaviors geared toward assessing their wheat’s quality using easily implementable test-weight measures, assessing the accuracy of the equipment used by buyers in their kebeles (scales, in particular), and contacting more than one buyer before concluding a sale. The training also led to improvements in share of output sold, price received, and collective marketing, albeit with important limitations. First, farmers who measured their wheat quality received a higher price, but only if their wheat was of higher quality. Second, farmers who found that their wheat was of higher quality were more reluctant to aggregate their wheat (that is, sell their products through local cooperatives) than those who found that their wheat was of lower quality. Lastly, the training intervention led to better use of fertilizer in the following season. Our discovery that a short training intervention can significantly change farmers’ marketing and production behavior should encourage the development of further interventions aimed at enhancing farmers’ adoption of improved technologies and commercialization.
| Author | : Ragasa, Catherine |
| Publisher | : Intl Food Policy Res Inst |
| Total Pages | : 54 |
| Release | : 2017-03-30 |
| Genre | : Political Science |
| ISBN | : |
The focus in this paper is on two relatively large maize-based contract farming (CF) schemes with fixed input packages (Masara and Akate) and a number of smaller and more flexible CF schemes in a remote region in Ghana (Upper West). Results show that these schemes led to improved technology adoption and yield increases. In addition, a subset of maize farmers with high yield improvements due to CF participation had high gross margins. However, on average, yields were not high enough to compensate for higher input requirements and cost of capital. On average, households harvest 29–30 bags (100 kg each), or 2.9–3.0 metric tons, of maize per hectare, and the required repayment for fertilizer, seed, herbicide, and materials provided under the average CF scheme is 21–25 bags (50 kg each) per acre, or 2.6–3.0 tons per hectare, which leaves almost none for home consumption or for sale. Despite higher yields, the costs to produce 1 ton of maize under CF schemes remain high on average—higher than on maize farms without CF schemes, more than twice that of several countries in Africa, and more than seven times higher than that of major maize-exporting countries (the United States, Brazil, and Argentina). Sustainability of these CF schemes will depend on, from the firms’ perspective, minimizing the costs to run and monitor them, and from the farmers’ perspective, developing and promoting much-improved varieties and technologies that may lead to a jump in yields and gross margins to compensate for the high cost of credit.
| Author | : Daniel Callo-Concha |
| Publisher | : MDPI |
| Total Pages | : 446 |
| Release | : 2020-05-20 |
| Genre | : Science |
| ISBN | : 3039286684 |
The bioeconomy concept aims to add sustainability to the production, transformation, and trade of biological goods. Though implemented around the world, the development of national bioeconomies is uneven, especially in the global South, where major challenges exist in Sub-Saharan Africa. In this context, the international BiomassWeb project aimed to underpin the bioeconomy concept by applying the value web approach, which seeks to uncover complex interlinked value webs instead of linear value chains. The project also aimed to develop intervention options to strengthen and optimize the synergies and trade-offs among different value chains. The Special Issue “Advances in Food and Non-Food Biomass Production, Processing and Use in Sub-Saharan Africa: Toward a Basis for a Regional Bioeconomy" compiles 23 articles produced in this framework. The articles are grouped in four sections: the value web approach; the production side; processing, transformation and trade; and global views.
