17 research outputs found
ARPN Journal of Agricultural and Biological Science OCCUPATIONAL HAZARDS AMONG COCOA FARMERS IN THE BIRIM SOUTH DISTRICT IN THE EASTERN REGION OF GHANA
No full textABSTRACT Cocoa (Theobroma cocoa) is one of the major agricultural commodities in Ghana. However, its production in Ghana and Africa is faced with numerous occupational hazards and injuries. A survey of 160 cocoa farmers in the Birim South District in the Eastern Region of Ghana was carried out to identify the predominant occupational hazards and injuries faced by the farmers during pre-planting, planting, post-planting and post-harvest operations. Injuries from stumps/thorns and cutlass were the most prevalent among farmers during land clearing and planting. Insect bite (red ants bite), cutlass injury, headache and severe fever were also the major problems encountered during farm maintenance. Back/waist pains, bee/warp sting, and headache were common problems during harvesting of pods and post harvest operations. Cutlass injury, stumps/thorns injury and back/waist pain were also found to be more debilitating accounting for an average day lost of 18, 12 and 12 from work in a cropping season respectively. Majority of respondent resorted to treatment from the hospital on injuries/hazards from cutlass, snake bite, burns and harvesting tools. However, majority resorted to self medication on injuries from stump and thorns, bees/wasp sting and fallen objects on the eye. Also nearly two-thirds of the respondents did not use protective equipment during application of agrochemicals and this resulted to difficulty in breathing, skin rashes and headaches. Cutlass injury recorded a greater number of days los
The Potential of Farmer Field School in Cocoa Extension Delivery:A Ghanaian Case Study
No full textThe potential of Farmer Field School (FFS) as an extension approach in Africa is still evolving, with limited empirical evidence. Cocoa FFSs have been introduced in Ghana by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture and Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) since 2006, and are still being experimented with by COCOBOD and NGOs. But, little is known about its effects on farmers to inform COCOBOD’s quest to mainstream and support it. This study, therefore, ascertains the potential of the FFS in terms of its effectiveness and impact on livelihoods of cocoa farmers in Ghana. Using a retrospective comparison design, a survey was conducted on beneficiaries of cocoa FFS in the Mpohor Wassa East District of the Western Region of Ghana. The case study found that the FFS was effective in facilitating farmers\u27 acquisition of knowledge in all cocoa technologies practiced under the FFS. The participant farmers perceived their yields to have increased significantly up to 79%, and their household livelihoods improved due to the FFS. It was also perceived to have improved all capital assets of the farmers, with human capital being the most affected. The best predictors of impact on the livelihoods of the cocoa farmers in FFS were mirid control practices (40.7%), followed by training and extension methods (7.4%). It can be concluded from this case study that FFS can be an effective tool for cocoa extension in Ghana based on the confidence the study farmers have shown regarding its ability to improve farmer competence, yields, and household livelihood
Undergraduate Students’ Willingness to Start Own Agribusiness Venture after Graduation: A Ghanaian Case
No full textImpact of Anchor Borrowers' Programme on the Livelihoods of Smallholder Farmers in Southeast, Nigeria
No full textThe study assessed the impact of the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP) on the livelihoods of smallholder farmers in Southeast, Nigeria. Quantitative data were explored using a cross-sectional survey hinged on the difference-in-difference, a retrospective causal-comparative impact evaluation design. All ABP beneficiaries and non-beneficiary smallholder farmers constituted the population for the study. Multi-stage, simple random and proportionate sampling techniques were employed in selecting a representative sample size of 381 for the beneficiaries and 384 for the non-beneficiaries. Data were collected using a structured interview schedule. The collected data were analyzed using mean, standard deviation, t-test and DiD estimator. The findings show that the ABP intervention did not significantly (? = 78,874; t = 0.02; P>0.05) impact the livelihood assets of smallholder farmers on the whole, though had impact on some human and financial assets. Project Management Team should place a premium on ensuring that farmers’ livelihood assets are built by eliminating all bottlenecks associated with ABP activitie
Determinants of agricultural extension agents’ internet competencies in Eastern Region of Ghana
No full textIsothermal Recombinase Polymerase amplification (RPA) of Schistosoma haematobium DNA and oligochromatographic lateral flow detection
No full text© 2015 Rosser et al. Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. The attached file is the published version of the article.NHM Repositor
Epidemiological interactions between urogenital and intestinal human schistosomiasis in the context of praziquantel treatment across three West African countries
No full text© 2015 Knowles et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. The attached file is the published version of the article.NHM Repositor
Participatory Action Research to Developing Acceptable Provitamin a Fortified Gari
No full textThere is severe clinical vitamin A deficiency (VAD) prevalence among Ghanaians and many African countries. Foodbased diets has been suggested as a more sustainable approach to solving the VAD situation in Africa. In this study, A participatory action research between orange flesh sweet potato farmers, gari processors within central region and academia was adopted to develop gari containing provitamin A beta-carotene. Gari is a major staple for Ghanaians and people in the West African subregion due to its affordability and swelling capacity. It is mainly eaten raw with water, sugar, groundnut and milk as gari-soakings or with hot water to prepare gelatinized food called gari-kai in Ghana or “eba” among Nigerians. However, gari is limited in provitamin A carotenoids. Orange fleshed sweet potato (OFSP) is known to contain large amount of vitamin A precursor. Therefore, addition of OFSP to gari would have the potential to fight the high prevalence rate of vitamin A deficiency amongst less developed regions of Africa. To develop this, different proportions of orange fleshed sweet potatoes (OFSP) was used to substitute cassava mash and fermented spontaneously to produce composite gari - a gritty-crispy ready-to-eat food product. Both the amount of OFSP and the fermentation duration caused significant increases in the β-carotene content of the composite gari. OFSP addition reduced the luminance while roasting made the composite gari yellower when compared with the cake used. Addition of OFSP negatively affected the swelling capacity of the gari although not significant. The taste, texture, flavour and the overall preferences for the composite gari decreased due to the addition of the OFSP but fermentation duration (FD) improved them. The sample with 10% OFSP and FD of 1.81 days was found to produce the optimal gari. One-portion of the optimal gari would contribute to 34.75, 23.2, 23.2, 27, 17 and 16% of vitamin A requirements amongst children, adolescent, adult males, adult females, pregnant women and lactating mothers respectively. The study demonstrated that partial substitution of cassava with OFSP for gari production would have the potential to fight the high prevalence rate of vitamin A deficiency amongst less developed regions of Africa while involvement of farmers and processors prior to the design of research phase enhanced the adoption of intervention strategies
Emancipatory spaces: Opportunities for (re)negotiating gendered subjectivities and enhancing adaptive capacities
No full text
