Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to determine the optimum combination of food
crop farm enterprises among smallholder farmers in Assin North District of
the Central Region of Ghana. The data collection for the study was done
through the administering of structured questionnaire. A multistage sampling
procedure was the sampling technique used to sample 360 smallholder
farmers. The LP model was used to determine the optimum farm plan as well
as the optimum gross margin for the farmers. The results suggest that the
farmer should plant 2.70 acres of plantain and 2.66 acres of rice to realize a
maximum gross margin of Ghc14011.70 without planting maize, cassava,
cocoyam and garden eggs. The most limiting constraints were identified by
both the LP model and the Kendall’s Coefficient of Concordance to be capital
followed by labor. The LP model was robust to changes in capital and labor in
the sensitivity analysis. The results further showed that the LP model provides
a basis for alternative crop combinations to address subsistence issues of the
farmer. Maize/plantain/rice and Cassava/ plantain/rice had the least tendency
to depress the gross margin if forced into the optimum plan for farmers. The
study recommends that farmers should channel their resource to produce the
optimum crops to get the maximum profit. Thus, farmers should adopt crop
combination system to reduce production risk and to ensure income stability.
Also, financial institutions should provide credit in a form of capital to enable
farmers increase their productivity and income since capital was the most
limiting constraint.
