The enduring intensification dilemma of Africa's rural farmer

The African Green Revolution is at the heart of agricultural transformations across the continent. Over the last couple of decades, the African Green Revolution Forum and partner organizations have championed ambitious plans to change the course of agriculture on the African continent. They aim to make an otherwise subsistence dominated and inefficient farming sector grow to "modern standards."

Mechanization, adoption of high-yielding varieties (HYVs) of seeds, application of chemical fertilizer, irrigation schemes, commercialization, and recently the application of digital tools are at the forefront of this agenda. In a nutshell, intensification of agriculture - an increase of productivity per acre resulting from the adoption of HYVs, inorganic fertilizer, and other agrochemicals aim at controlling weeds and pests - is proposed as the way forward.

However, critics of such an approach argue this is alienated from the reality of rural Africa's food production practices. Others suggest that an intensification is a neo-colonized approach that makes farmers in Africa dependent on agricultural production inputs from the west, hence threatening the continent's food sovereignty. Interestingly, this debate takes a different turn when it comes to understanding Africa's farmer's behaviours. Our research in Ghana has found that smallholders face dilemmas in their choices within fragmented approaches to their growth.

Smallholder behaviours towards HYVs and complementary technologies in Ghana

Our research, partly funded through the Canada First Research Excellence Fund and the Canada Research Chairs Program in 2021-2022, aimed to understand how to improve farmers' access to quality maize seeds for enhanced productivity in Ghana. We interviewed farmers to learn their perceptions and behaviours towards HYV and complimentary agrochemicals. All these farmers (110) run a smaller farm size of up to 2.8 acres, under rain-fed with farm labour predominantly being family members. We found that only 47% of farmers are willing to purchase the seeds at full cost. The rest will adopt them if they are for free or get it in kind or exchange with something, or reduce cost.  About 81% of farmers alluded that they may not adopt improved seeds because it is expensive to purchase and require a lot of labour to cultivate it.

Furthermore, only 8% of farmers use agrochemicals like pesticides and weedicides, and 24% use fertilizer. The farmers who use fertilizer are those with multiple income generation sources and can afford to use chemical fertilizer to some extent.

Almost all of those interviewed agreed that market availability for produce plays a crucial role in farmers' decision to adopt improved planting technologies and farming practices. With a farmer asking, "why should I plant expensive seeds that would give me more yield when I do not have the market for my produce." The decisions farmers make are crucial to understanding the potential for success or otherwise of the "modern smallholder."

What we learnt from farmer choices

What can be perceived from these farmers' behaviour is indifference in adopting low input agriculture production practices. Farmers may be excited about the prospect of agricultural intensification through improved seeds, but their behaviours towards them are complicated. Local context, generation passed-on farm practices and other socio-economic issues would not permit them to adopt intensification - at least not wholly.

The idea of agrochemicals to control weeds and pests on farms are exciting and less laborious. Yet, the cost of purchasing these inputs could be overwhelming for many. This challenge leads farmers to adopt intensification and complement it with their ecological experience/practices in farming. The result is an output that falls short of either intensification or agroecological farm practices.

Also, the behaviours of farmers towards these inputs show that farmers are economic agents. Farmers will not fully adopt particular technology that doesn't make economic sense to them. Irrespective of how much investment is made in terms of time, money and extension and capacity building training, farmers will continue to exhibit indifference towards modern inputs.  They will only adopt less expensive technologies that save time and reduce farm labour effort in their practices.

How to move forward with the adoption of modern inputs

Considering that the continent is struggling to produce enough food to feed itself, policymakers in the region must invest in the fundamentals. Governments and other stakeholders need to invest in assets such as lands, machinery, and irrigation, to support farmers' use of other inputs. Considerable investment in adequate market infrastructure and communication networks that give farmers access to current crop price information is crucial in stimulating farmers' desire to adopt green revolution technologies.

Finally, and most importantly, the region must invest in knowledge mobilization and efficient agricultural extension services to disseminate research and development findings from field trials. Extension activities need to expand beyond the dissemination of practices to include the value propositions of these inputs. This should be tailored in a manner that incorporates farmers' views and behaviour towards improved planting technologies. In other words, the approach towards design and dissemination of these technologies should be farmer-to-farmer led to increase the widespread adoption among rural farmers who are in dilemma of which improved technologies to adopt for enhanced productivity.