Agricultural services and rural household welfare: empirical evidence from Ghana

Abstract

PurposeThis paper aimed to examine the impacts of agricultural services on welfare of rural farmers in Ghana.Design/methodology/approachUsing data from 1431 rural maize farmers, we employ multinomial endogenous switching regression and multivalued inverse probability weighted regression adjustment to assess the impacts.FindingsResults show that 19.8%, 9.7% and 3.42% of farmers adopted solely irrigation, extension and mechanization, respectively. Furthermore, utilizing a range of agricultural services significantly improves maize yields, gross income and per capita food consumption.Research limitations/implicationsThis study recommends strategies that target the adoption of combinations of agricultural services to enhance rural farmers’ welfare in Ghana and other developing countries.Originality/valueWhile agricultural services are claimed to improve agricultural production and peasants’ welfare, their impacts are not studied exhaustively. This paper contributes by providing empirical evidence of the impacts of agricultural services on farmers’ welfare.Peer reviewThe peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-11-2022-0745.