@article{188,
author = "Mercy Asamoah",
abstract = "The Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana (CRIG)
has over the years developed improved technologies and
innovations to increase production to sustain the cocoa
industry. These technologies are meant to be fully utilized
with the right kind of equipment in order to realize the
maximum benefit. However, despite the proven economic
profitability of the technologies, certain socio-cultural factors
affect full utilisation by small-scale farmers due to many
personal and external factors. Some of these factors are
farmer goals and their age, the system of labour employment,
social obligations, attitudes and perceptions, inheritance
system and land fragmentation. In order to encourage full
utilization of these technologies, these socio-cultural factors
need to be investigated and appropriate recommendations
made to impact positively on Ghanaian cocoa farmers'
maintenance culture. Thus, this study discussed sociocultural
factors in respect of farmers’ farm management
culture. A total of 240 respondents were interviewed in the
Ashanti, Eastern, and Western regions of Ghana. Results
showed that many farmers were aged, had many cocoa
farms, large family sizes and perceived full use of CRIG’s
technologies as expensive for small-scale farmers. Thus, the
majority were constrained by lack of funds due to rising cost
of social obligations, which ranked first among their
priorities. Negative attitudes and perceptions also influenced
some of the farmers. Fragmentation and labour systems also
affected some farmers. It is thus, recommended that farmer
education should be intensified and supported with
favourable policies that would motivate them to fully utilize
best practices approved for the management of cocoa farms.",
issn = "23495219",
journal = "IJIRES",
keywords = "Cocoa, Farm Management, Cocoa Research, Small Scale Farmers",
month = "Jan.-Feb.",
note = "This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
Creative Commons License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/",
number = "1",
pages = "17-21",
title = "{U}tilization of {C}ocoa {F}arm {M}anagement {P}ractices by {S}mall-{S}cale {F}armers: {T}he {P}ressure of {S}ocio-{C}ultural {F}actors",
volume = "2",
year = "2015",
}