Cocoa farmers' knowledge and perception of hand pollination and its effect on their practices and yield. A case study of Tafo cocoa district, Eastern region-Ghana
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Date
2021-06-15
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Abstract
One of the leading products that is supplied on the world market from Ghana is cocoa. The cocoa
sector alone employs millions of people and in the early 1960's Ghana was recorded to be the
leading producer of cocoa. However, there has been a decline in the current production of cocoa
which has been attributed to many factors such as pest and diseases infestations, poor maintenance,
ineffective and inefficient extension system, lack of cocoa production among others. Currently,
various researchers are dwelling into the application of hand pollination to increase the production
of various food crops which cocoa is not an exception. The study seeks to determine farmers’
knowledge and perception of hand pollination and its effect on the output or yield of cocoa and on
their farm practices by using the Tafo district as a case study. Using structured questionnaires, a
total of one hundred and ten (110) cocoa farmers were selected by simple random sampling
techniques. The socio-economic characteristics such as gender, age, educational level, marital
status, migration status, farming experience, farm size, age of cocoa trees among others were the
factors on which data were collected. The data was further analyzed using descriptive analysis, the
probit and Tobit model was developed to also determine farmers’ knowledge and perception
respectively and then the test of association between farm size and output was done using the
Pearson Chi-square statistic. It was observed that male dominated the cocoa farming industry and
majority of the farmers had at least basic level of education. Educational level, farm size, gender,
age and farming experience were observed to have an influence on farmers’ knowledge on the
application of hand pollination. While the size of farm also influences the farmer’s perception on
the application of hand pollination; a positive relationship with the output of cocoa farmer existed.
This implies that an increase in the productivity of cocoa might somehow depend on the size of the
farm. This is because when a larger size farm is hand pollinated, there is the likelihood of an
increase in output.
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Description
A thesis submitted to the Department of Construction Technology and Management, College
of Art and Built Environment in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Award of
Master of Science
Keywords
Cocoa farmers', Perception, Hand pollination, Eastern region-Ghana