The adoption of agriculture technology in small-scale farming in the Adumasa community in Ghana

The paper examined the factors that had informed the adoption decision of small-scale farmers in the Adumasa community in adopting new agricultural technologies; namely fertilizer application, pesticides use, modern irrigation systems and use of the motor tricycle (Aboboya) for conveying farm inputs and harvest to and from the farms. From the study, it has been found that multiple institutional and political factors, as well as socio-economic factors facilitate the adoption decision of the farmers. Institutional factors that have informed adoption decision of the farmers were access to extension services and advice, support from farmer cooperatives, access, and closeness to input markets and workshops, and community training programs. The socio-economic factors were capital and productive resources available to farmers and educational levels, the size of the farmland, age, and gender. However, factors including limited capital and resource base of some of the farmers, low access to credit facilities, high prices of inputs, as well as the fear that some of the farmers have with regards to the long term effects on the fertility and quality of the soil, and experiences of losing their capital and incurring debts have become obstacles for these farmers. It could therefore be argued that multiple indicators which may be institutional, as well as socio-economic tend to facilitate decisions of the farmers to employ or not employ the technologies and not necessarily a single factor. Nevertheless, economic factors which are realized in the form access to productive resources, credit facilities, capital, as well as services of extension officers come as the more pressing indicators for the farmers.