Abstract:
The purpose of the study was to identify the best predictors of cocoa farmers’ willingness to adopt future precision
agriculture technologies (PATs) in Ghana. The target population was all cocoa farmers who benefited from cocoa high
technology programme (an initiative of distributing free fertilizer by the government to selected cocoa farmers) in Ghana.
A total of 416 cocoa farmers who are beneficiaries of the programme were interviewed. Majority (83%) of the respondents
were willing to adopt future PATs development in Ghana. The binary logistic regression model explained between 37.5%
to 60.4% of the variances in cocoa farmers’ willingness to adopt any future PATs. The significant predictors of
respondents’ willingness to adopt future PATs were: i. educational level of cocoa farmers; ii. cocoa farmers who plant in
rows; iii. credit from financial institution; iv. relative advantage of PATs and v. farmers’ perceived ease of use of PATs.
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 in cocoa industry
of the potential benefits of PAT development in cocoa industry in Ghana
