Poster prepared by Bekele Hundie, Arega Alene, Victor Manyong, Irmgard Hoeschle-Zeledon and Asamoah Larbi for the Tropentag 2015 Conference on Management of land use systems for enhanced food security—Conflicts, controversies and resolutions, Berlin, 16-18 September 2015 So what factors influence whether farmers will adopt new sustainable intensification practices (SIPs)? And what is their impact anyway? According to this recent study by the Africa RISING project in northern Ghana, adoption of sustainable intensification practices is influenced by several factors including: 1. Plot size, 2. perception of soil erosion, 3. off-farm income, 4. contact with model farmer, 5. social capital, 6. per capita land size, and 7. distance from market.

1. Adoption and Impact of Sustainable Intensification Practices in Ghana
Bekele Hundie Kotu1, Arega Alene1, Victor Manyong1 , Irmgard Hoeschle-Zeledon1 , and Asamoah Larbi1
1International Institute of Tropical Agriculture
Corresponding author email: b.kotu@cgiar.org
The Africa Research In Sustainable Intensification for the Next Generation (Africa RISING) program comprises three research-for-
development projects supported by the United States Agency for International Development as part of the U.S. government’s Feed the
Future initiative.
Through action research and development partnerships, Africa RISING will create opportunities for smallholder farm households to move
out of hunger and poverty through sustainably intensified farming systems that improve food, nutrition, and income security, particularly
for women and children, and conserve or enhance the natural resource base.
The three projects are led by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (in West Africa and East and Southern Africa) and
the International Livestock Research Institute (in the Ethiopian Highlands). The International Food Policy Research Institute
leads an associated project on monitoring, evaluation and impact assessment.
www.africa-rising.net
1. Introduction
While agricultural output can be increased by
putting more lands under cultivation, it is
becoming more and more difficult nowadays for
many African countries to realize agricultural
growth in such a way because of increasing
land scarcity. Consequently, agricultural
intensification has been promoted particularly
since the remarkable achievements of Asian
countries during the era of green revolution.
More recently focus has been given to the
sustainability of such practices mainly because
of the negative environmental externalities of
past practices. Sustainable intensification
entails the application of multiple inputs and
practices in an integrated manner to increase
productivity while increasing contributions to
natural capital and environmental services
(Pretty et al 2011, Tilman et al 2002). This study
aims to assess the adoption of sustainable
intensification practices (SIPs) and analyse its
impacts on farmers' income.
3. Method of Data Analysis
Seven SIPs were considered in our analysis
namely, inter-cropping, crop rotation, organic
fertilisers (mainly manure), soil and water
conservation practices, inorganic fertilisers,
improved seeds, and pesticides (including
herbicides). A multivariate probit (MVP) model
was estimated using a simulated maximum
likelihood method to assess the integrated
adoption of multiple SIPs. Moreover, we used a
multivalued semi-parametric treatment effect
model (MVTE) to estimate the effects of
adopting SIPs on three productivity indicators
i.e. gross return, net return, and returns to
labour in maize production.
4.2. Determinants of adoption
The MVP regression result shows that 27 out
of 29 explanatory variables could explain
adoption decisions in at least one of the SIPs.
Factors such as plot size, perception of soil
erosion, off-farm income, contact with model
farmer, and social capital have consistent
positive relationships with at least three SIPs
while per capita land size and distance from
market have negative relationships. Other
factors, such as plot ownership, slope, soil
type, home-plot distance, livestock holding,
access to credit, and sex of household head
have a mixture of positive and negative
effects. For instance, having more livestock
enhances the use of organic fertilizers
(manure) but reduces the likelihood of
applying chemical fertilizers. The results also
show that the adoptions of the SIPs are
interdependent and that most farmers adopt
agricultural practices as a package but not as
a single technology.
Figure 1: Location of the study areas
2.The study areas and the data
The study is based on data collected from 1284
households residing in 50 rural villages of
northern Ghana in 2014.
4. Findings
4.1.Rate of adoption
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 or 7
Maize
Major crops
Percent
Number of SIPs adopted
4.3. Impacts of adoption
The first stochastic dominance analysis
shows that the probability of lower returns is
lower for farmers adopting more number of
SIPs than those who adopt less (Figure 3)
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
1
300 600 900 1200 1500 1800 2100 2400
o or 1 SIP
2 SIPs
3 SIPs
≥ 4 SIPs
Net return (GHC/ha)
Probabil
The mean maize gross return increases
across treatment levels as one goes from no
adoption of SIP category through to adoption
of four or more SIPs category (Figure 4). All
the coefficients are statistically significant at
5% or 1% levels.
-50
0
50
100150200
Changeingrossincome(GHC/ha)
2 vs 0 3 vs 0 4 vs 0 3 vs 2 4 vs 2 4 vs 3
Comparisons
The Average Treatment Effect (ATE)
increases as the number of SIPs increases for
the 25th, 50th, and 75th quantiles. In all
cases, the ATEs are significantly different from
zero (Figure 5).
0
200
400
600
800
0 or 1 2 3 ≥4
mean
q25
q50
q75
GHC/ha
Number of SIPs adopted
Conclusion
Our result shows that SIPs are interdependent
and hence most farmers adopt agricultural
practices as a package but not as a single
technology. Such a mechanism of adoption
has helped those farmers who adopted
multiple SIPs to exploit potential
complementarity among the technologies.
The authors are grateful to USAID/FtF Initiative for
its financial support. We also thank project team
members at IFPRI specifically Carlo Azzari and
Beliyou Haile for sharing the data set with us.
Acknowledgements
Pretty, J., Toulmin, C. & Williams, S. (2011).
Sustainable intensification in African agriculture. Int.
Jour. of Agricultural Sustainability, 9:1, 5-24
Tilman, D., Cassman, K.G., Matson, P.A., Naylor, R.
& Polasky, S. (2002). Agricultural sustainability and
intensive production practices. NATURE, VOL 418:
671-677
References
Figure 5: Effect of SIPs on maize productivity, by quantile
Figure 4: Effect of SIPs on maize productivity, mean level
Figure 2: Adoption SIPs in Ghana
Figure 3:Impact of SIPs on net return of maize