Smallholder Farmers’ Willingness to Reduce Post-Harvest Losses: A Case Study in the Ashanti Region of Ghana.

Abstract

Losses of fruit and vegetable products after harvesting place a major constraint on food security in Ghana. Understanding farmers’ willingness is very significant to developing long term policies in reducing post-harvest losses. This paper investigated the factors that contributes to smallholder famers’ willingness to reduce post-harvest loss of fruit and vegetables in Ghana. Employing the binary logistic regression model, the findings revealed factors such as storage facilities, processing facilities and socio-demographic characteristics of farmers such as age, education and years of farming experience were found to be significant in determining farmers’ willingness to reduce post-harvest losses. The paper further emphasized the need for the Ghana government to build more storage facilities within farming communities to enable smallholder farmers store their harvested crop products.

Keywords: Post-Harvest Loss, Storage Facilities, Processing Facilities, Ghana.

DOI: 10.7176/JBAH/15-1-08

Publication date: May 30th 2025