As part of the requirement to provide capacity building/strenthening for individuals on the ALL-IN Project, Samuel Kwabena Chaa Kyire, a graduate research assistant, has completed his M.Phil thesis using a subset of the data collected during the baseline survey of the ALL-IN Project dubbed, “Bundling Small Scale Irrigation and Drought Index Insurance to Manage Small-Scale Farmers’ Income Risk and Expanding Their Access to Agricultural Credit”.
This research project is being undertaken by the University of Energy and Natural Resources (UENR) Ghana, under the auspices of the International Centre for Evaluation and Development (ICED) and funded by Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Markets, Risks and Resilience (MRR), University of California, Davis.
The candidate, whose thesis is entitled “Perceived risk, risk management and credit access among irrigated rice farmers in the Upper East region, Ghana” has successfully defended his thesis, did the corrections based on comments from the Internal and External Examiners and submitted the final version of the thesis to the School of Graduate Studies, UENR and is awaiting graduation on the 31st March, 2023 to be awarded an M.Phil. in Agribusiness Management.
In an interview, Professor John K. M. Kuwornu, the Principal Investigator on the ALL-IN Research Project at UENR disclosed, “Samuel Kwabena Chaa Kyire has been associated with the project; he is hardworking and has the potential to attain higher laurels in academia. I pledge to mentor him to pursue his PhD.”
“Apart from the academics”, Samuel intimated, “I have gained much knowledge and experience which will help in my career. I want to express my profound gratitude to Feed the Future Innovation Lab and ICED for making the funds available for the project. Also, my appreciation goes to Prof. John K. M. Kuwornu, the Lead of the ALL-IN Project at UENR and the entire team for their continuous support. I am looking forward to future opportunities in graduate research so that I will be able to undertake a PhD Program and improve my career and capacity in the field of Agribusiness Management.”
The abstract of the thesis is presented as follows:
This study explored risk perception, management, and credit access among irrigated rice farmers. A multistage sampling approach was employed to sample 477 farmers from the Tono and Vea irrigation schemes in the Upper East region of Ghana. The perception index, multivariate probit regression and structural equation modelling were used to analyse farmers’ perception of agricultural risks, determinants of adopting risk management instruments and the moderating role of extension frequency between risk management and access to credit, respectively. The estimated perception index was 0.43, indicating that rice farmers positively perceive agricultural risks. Further, education, gender, farmer group membership, access to extension agents and research centres, total landholding, rice farm size, risk perceptions and perceived environmental changes such as drought, rainfall and declining soil fertility are the significant determinants of adopting risk management strategies. Moreover, the number of extension contact significantly moderates the relationship between risk management instruments (off-farm work and bonding) and the amount of credit borrowed by farmers. It is recommended that extension agents (Ministry of Food and Agriculture) and researchers (Savannah Agricultural Research Institute) need to enhance their services with frequent demonstrations and training to facilitate farmers’ adoption of risk management instruments. Financial service providers should also consider offering in-kind credit to farmers to stop using cash loans meant for farming for off-farm activities. Further, this study re-affirms Protection Motivation Theory as a critical driver of adopting risk management instruments.
