Perceived Livelihoods of Women Vegetable Farmers in the Central Region of Ghana

• Main Author: Fatimah Abubakari Von
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Africa Development and Resources Research Institute (ADRRI) 2018-12-01
• Series: Journal of Agriculture and Food Sciences
• Online Access: https://journals.adrri.org/index.php/adrrijafs/article/view/407

The vegetable industry in Ghana merits much attention as it provides quick returns to investment, generates relatively higher annual revenue and an assured way of improving the livelihoods of farmers especially women. A descriptive survey design was used for the study and stratified proportionate random sampling method was used to select 221 women farmers in three districts. Results of the study revealed that respondents generally had reasonable amounts of livelihood assets as a ‘whole’ even though farmers ‘disagreed’ financial assets was available to them. Furthermore, the analysis of variance revealed that there were significant differences between all the five assets except between natural and physical assets. The results of stepwise multiple regression analysis revealed that (1) the number of times vegetables are grown in a year and (2) area of land under cultivation were the best predictors of yield of women vegetable farmers. Based on the findings of the study, government as part of the planting for food and jobs should encourage the female youth to go into vegetable production to gradually replace the aging farmers. Also, credit should be made accessible to farmers by financial institutions so that the women can increase their farm sizes and the number of times the vegetable are grown within a year to increase their incomes.