Coping with market reforms: winners and losers among Ghanaian cocoa farmers. Final report.
Abstract
This study analyses the changes that have occurred to Ghana's cocoa sector since the early 1990s by posing four related research questions: 1. How much has cocoa production increased in the 1990s, and how does the macro evidence on the aggregate changes to the sector compare to the microeconomic changes observed at the farm level? 2. Are cocoa smallholders using more inputs (labour and chemicals) as a result of the reforms and have these changes in inputs been associated with changes in land or labour productivity? 3. Are contractual arrangements over land rights a useful dimension to investigate differentials in farmers' productivity levels? If so is this informative of possible ways to improve the incentives given to the farmers for a more efficient allocation of inputs in cocoa production? and 4. Most fundamentally of all, is there any evidence of increases in total factor productivity? The objective of the project was to identify winners and losers from market reforms and highlight the serious outstanding problems that remain for the sector. This final report outlines the project's background and objectives, methodology, findings and dissemination of results. An appendix contains the questionnaire conducted on cocoa farmers in July-September 2002 on production, sales and marketing arrangements.
Citation
35 pp.