Adoption of Innovations by Small Ruminant Farmers in Northern Ghana: The Case of Tolon-Kumbungu District

Abstract

Northern region is one of the poorest regions of Ghana. About 80% of the population is poor, majority of who are small scale farmers. The rearing of small ruminants plays an important role in the livelihood sustainability of rural farmers in Northern Ghana. Up to 70% of the rural people in Northern region of Ghana are engaged in rearing of small ruminants. Small ruminant production in the region is often characterized by low productivity. The low productivity can partly be attributed to inadequate knowledge in small ruminant innovations. The present study was carried out in Tolon-Kumbungu district, which is one of the districts having the highest concentration of small ruminants in Ghana. The overall objective of this paper was to determine the extent to which personal factors such as level of education, family size and age influence the level of adoption of small ruminant innovations. In all, 120 small ruminant farmers were drawn from 12 communities using simple random sampling technique. Data were collected by questionnaire administration and observation; and analyzed using descriptive statistics with the help of SPSS software. Chi-square test was used to determine the relationship between adoption level and personal factors. The findings show that, aside level of education which exhibited level of significance with respect to technology such as forage preservation and utilization, the rest of the variables did not show any significance. Therefore, if adoption level is to be improved more attention should be paid to enhancing farmers' personal factors such as level of education.

Key words: Adoption, personal factors, small ruminant and innovations