Farmer Perceptions and Economic Performance of Cocoa Agroforestry Shade Levels in Ghana

ABSTRACT

Improving productivity of cocoa farms while ensuring forests sustainability through cocoa agroforestry is increasingly gaining the attention of policy makers. Using data from cocoa farmers in rural areas of Southern Ghana, the present study analyzes farmer perceptions on economic and ecological benefits of cocoa agroforestry shade levels with non-parametric tests, and economic performance of cocoa agroforestry shade levels with a cost-benefit modeling approach. The results from the study show that apart from market forces, farmers’ ecological perceptions play a crucial role in the establishment of agroforestry shade levels. There is also evidence to suggest that the medium shade cocoa agroforestry has a higher economic performance. Policies that promote awareness creation and increase knowledge on cocoa agroforestry shade levels are essential ingredients for forest sustainability in sub-Saharan Africa.

KEYWORDS:

• Agroforestry
• cocoa
• economic viability
• forest sustainability
• Ghana
• perceptions
• shade levels

Declaration of Conflict of Interest

We the authors, Victor Owusu, Vera Akoto-Adjepong, Emmanuel Acheampong, and Victor Rex Barnes, wish to declare no conflict of interest regarding the publication of the manuscript in the Journal of Sustainable Forestry.

Data Availability Statement

The data for the study are available upon request from the corresponding author (Victor Owusu).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website.

Notes

¹ Rejecting the null hypothesis implies the perceptions of the two groups are statistically different, whereas failing to reject the null hypothesis implies the perceptions of the two groups are the same.

Additional information

Funding

We acknowledge the funding support by The West and Central African Council for Agricultural Research and Development (CORAF/WECARD), a member of the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA).