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Determinants of Ex-ante Adoption of Precision Agriculture Technologies by Cocoa Farmers in Ghana
1M. Bosompem, 2J. A. Kwarteng, 2H. D. Acquah
1. University of Cape Coast
2. University of Cape Coast, Ghana

The study was to identify the best predictors of cocoa Farmers willingness to adopt future Precision Agriculture Technology (PAT) Development in Ghana. Correlational research design was used. The target population was all cocoa farmers who benefited from Cocoa High Technology Programme (an initiative of distributing free fertilizer by government to cocoa farmers) in Ghana. Multistage sampling technique was used to select 422 out of 400,000 cocoa farmers in the six (6) out of the seven (7) cocoa growing regions in Ghana. A content-validated and reliable structured interview schedule was used to collect primary data from respondents. Descriptive statistics and Binary Logistic Regression were used to identify the best predictors of cocoa farmers willingness to adopt PA from the main predictors (i. Demographic and farm related characteristics of cocoa farmers (18 predictors), ii. Cocoa Farmers Perceived Attributes of PA innovations (6 predictors); iii. The Awareness level of respondents in PA technologies (3 predictors). Majority (83%) of the respondents were willing to adopt future PA technology development in Ghana. The Binary Logistic regression analysis, showed that the model as a whole explained between 37.5% to 60.4% of the variances in cocoa farmers’ willingness to adopt any future PATs. Only Five (5) (Educational Level of cocoa farmers; Cocoa farmers who plant in rows; Credit from financial institution; Relative advantage of PATs and the perceived Ease of use of PATs) out of the 28 predictors made a unique statistically significant contribution to the cocoa farmers willingness to adopt future PATs developed. The odds ratio showed that the strongest predictor of farmers’ willingness to adopt any future PATs was “row planting” indicating that farmers who had already planted in rows are more likely to adopt future PATs than those who had not yet done so. The study recommended among others the need to create awareness among farmers and other major stakeholders of the potentials of PAT development in cocoa production in Ghana.

Keyword: Determinants, Precision Agriculture, Future Adoption, Cocoa Production, Ghana