Factors influencing willingness to participate in multi-stakeholder platform by smallholder farmers in Northern Ghana: implication for research and development

Abstract

Innovation platforms are established to facilitate open communication and collaboration among various actors usually within a value chain to promote collective resource management. The concept of innovation platform as a strategy of entry point for operationalization, validation and dissemination of agricultural technology have received much attention in recent times among researchers in Ghana. However, very limited information exists on the factors that influence willingness of farmers' participation. The present study identified the factors influencing willingness to participate in innovation platform and also tested the level of agreement among the identified constraints associated with participation using the Probit model and Kendall's coefficient of concordance respectively. Data for the study was collected from a cross sectional primary observations of 250 smallholder rice farmers in northern Ghana. The study observes, inter alia, that age of household head, household size and household income significantly influenced willingness to participate on the platform. The Kendall's coefficient of concordance value indicated that there was 21 percent agreement between the rankings of the participation constraints faced by the sampled rice farmers. Income-earning and younger household heads must be targeted coupled with situation of the platforms close to smallholder farmers to encourage participation.

Water user associations: a review of approaches and alternative management options for Sub-Saharan Africa

“…Innovation platforms are a type of multi-stakeholder platform with the aim of facilitating open communication and collaboration between stakeholders usually within a value chain to promote collective resource management or bring new products or processes and organizational forms into economic use (Martey et al 2014;Rajalahti et al 2008). They extend beyond the creation of knowledge and include factors affecting demand for and use of knowledge (Rajalahti et al 2008).…”

“…As challenges associated with natural resource management are multi-faceted, they can require multiple interventions in parallel (e.g., market access, institutional reform, infrastructure design, rural development, government policies, etc.). Innovation platforms enable users and stakeholders to develop new forms of communication, decision finding/making, and equality of access to information, knowledge and accountability of community-based management institutions (Martey et al 2014). …”

“…As presented by Martey et al (2014) for Northern Ghana, multi-stakeholder and innovation platforms can enhance coordination, communication and collaboration between stakeholders within a value chain, and ultimately promote collective resource management. As described by Martey et al (2014), MSPs to increase rice production and food security support the sharing and dissemination of knowledge, and coordinate decision making at local, national and regional levels.…”

“…As described by Martey et al (2014), MSPs to increase rice production and food security support the sharing and dissemination of knowledge, and coordinate decision making at local, national and regional levels. The platform equally serves the purpose of increasing competitiveness of agriculture, or improving access to markets (national and international).…”

The Dairy Value Chain, Inclusive Business Model, and Inclusiveness Improvement of Southern Bandung Dairy Cooperative (KPBS) Pangalengan

“…Organizing regular meeting between key actors and certain partners of the dairy chain (regular joint meeting) Chain-wide collaboration (2.5) Commercial goals are not aligned among the actors Effective market linkage (2.75) Actors do not rapidly react to changing market conditions The regular joint meetings have similar essence, importance, and benefits with multi-stakeholder discussions (Bianco et al 2014), stakeholder dialogues (Alpana, 2014), Multi-Stakeholder Platforms or MSP (Martey et al 2014), and multi-stakeholder partnerships (Kefasi et al 2011). MSP can be specially addressed for smallholders (Hounkonnou et al 2012;Kilelu et al 2017;and Mulema and Mazur, 2015).…”