Donkeys and bicycles: capital interactions facilitating timely compost application in Northern Ghana

Abstract

Organic amendments such as compost are key to sustainable soil fertility management, but their use is constrained by a lack of appropriate vehicles with which to transport them to the fields. Farmers in the Northern Ghanaian Guinea Savanna tested individually owned headpans and bicycles, group-owned wheelbarrows and donkey carts, and hired handtrucks and bullock carts. They found a combination of donkey and bicycle best for compost carriage. The large donkey cart was preferred to the very large bullock cart due to the donkey's stamina and the time conflict between bullocks carrying compost and ploughing. However, the donkey cart was harder to access as it was owned in a group, whereas individually owned bicycles were always available. Timing was therefore the mechanism through which capital acted to determine the most appropriate vehicle. Human capital was the primary requirement for timely compost carriage, and financial capital replaced it when a high-capacity vehicle was substituted. The social capital involved in being in a donkey owning group gave farmers access to an outside source of financial capital for cart purchase, but cash limitation was the ultimate barrier to access to appropriate means of transport.

Keywords:

• compost
• intermediate transport
• Northern Ghana
• soil fertility management