Analysis of Seed Cotton Production in Northern Region of Ghana

This book is on the analysis of seed cotton production in the Northern region of Ghana. Although the crop is a significant economic crop in the region it still records wide fluctuations in production levels. This called for the assessment of the factors that determine cotton production in the area. The trend of seed cotton production has been erratic in the area and the price of seed cotton per kilogram in real terms has experienced marginal fluctuation. Time as an explanatory variable, is statistically significant at 1 percent in influencing real prices of seed cotton. The result of the Augmented Cobb-Douglas production regression showed the significant factors, at 10 percent, to include experience, farmer s educational status, farm size, fertilizer, quantity of seed used, labour input, extension advice, and farmer group size. The result of the estimation also shows decreasing returns to scale of 0.824. The study concluded that seed, spray, group size, market conditions and contact with extension agents are important factors in cotton production and called for policy intervention to focus on the quality and timely provision of these inputs.

Autorentext

The author is a lecturer in the Department of Economics and Entrepreneurship Development, University for Development Studies. He attended University for Development Studies and University of Ghana, Legon, both in Ghana, and obtained BA and MPhil Degrees respectively. Finance and economics, project analysis and econometrics are his interest areas.