Farmer training and household labour use

Abstract

The question has always been asked as to whether training leads to a change in farmer behaviour in terms of labour for farm production. This question forms the main thesis of this paper. The paper investigates this question, among others, using panel data obtained from about 3,000 farmers and collected over the period February 2010 to January 2011. The paper employs a difference-in-difference estimator to test whether training provided to beneficiary farmers under the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) Ghana programme did change labour use on the farms of these farmers. The main findings of the study are that the training seems to have impacted positively on households'decision to allocate labour hours to harvesting related activities for both the major and minor seasons. The study concludes by noting that there are significant differential impacts with respect to the type of labour, and/orzonefor which the estimates were generated. In general, the impact is positive for all the cases where evidence of impact is found. It is therefore suggested that farmers increased their labour use because of their expectations of positive returns due to the Millennium Development Authority (MiDA) intervention.