Agricultural Transformation in Ghana - Changing Farm Size Patterns and their Impact on Regional Poverty Outcomes

作者：Lisa Höschle · 年份：2020 · 研究领域：Agriculture and Rural Development Research

In the past, agriculture for development has proven an effective tool for developing countries to stimulate economic growth and development and hence alleviate the incidence of poverty. This paper puts a particular focus on Ghana´s recent agricultural transformation process and scrutinizes the effect of regional farm size patterns – expanding predominantly from small- to medium-sized – on poverty outcomes. Based on a literature-founded inference of changing farm size patterns, OLS regression analyses are conducted, evaluating data from the latest Ghana Living Standard Survey in 2017. A positive impact of greater farm size on the alleviation of poverty is identified. Furthermore, farms in the North of the country are considered to become increasingly larger when compared to their Southern counterparts. Yet, not all regions experience the same effect of agricultural transformation on the incidence of poverty. Even though Northern farms tend to be larger, they also show a propensity to be poorer. Consequently, poverty outcomes are not only contingent on farm size, but they further interact with the geographic location of the farm, whereby farms located in the North experience a mitigated effect on poverty reduction despite greater farm size. Therefore, the paper concludes that, although agricultural transformation is taking place displaying in changing farm size patterns, poverty outcomes continue to be adversely influenced by a North-South divide, reinforcing regional divergenc...