Effects of Pineapple Cultivation on Rural Smallholder Farmers in the Ekumfi District of Central Region, Ghana.

Abstract

The study sought to assess the effect of pineapple cultivation on rural households: the case of smallholder farmers in the Ekumfi district of Central Region, Ghana. Specifically, four research objectives were investigated; to examine access to land for pineapple cultivation, to assess the positive and the negative effects of pineapple cultivation on farming household, to assess the challenges of the farmers in the pineapple cultivation and to explore strategies for enhancing the benefits of pineapple cultivation. Employing a descriptive research design and a mixed method approach, a census was used to gather data from a total of 140 households’ respondents and 7 key informants in the Ekumfi Nanabin of the Central Region of Ghana. Data for the study were gathered through structured interview, questionnaires and observation. The data collected was processed using the IBM SPSS Statistics (version 26). Descriptive statistics purely mean and standard deviation were used to the address issues in the study. The study found that acquisition and access to land for pineapple cultivation in the Ekumfi Nanabin was mainly by inheritance and in some instances by sharecropping agreement and rent. The study also found that pineapple cultivation is a beneficial business venture but bedeviled with challenges such as post-harvest losses, poor road network and inadequate access to credit. The study recommends that Government provide farmers with subsidized fertilizers, suckers and collateral free loans to increase pineapple production. The poor road networks which mostly restrict transportation of harvested pineapple should be constructed to ease these difficulties.