Optimum combination of food crop farm enterprise among smallholder farmers in the Assin north district of Ghana

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.