Download or read book Mapping the implementation process for subsidized fertilizer distribution under Ghana s Planting for Food and Jobs Program written by Aberman, Noora-Lisa and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2021-06-09 with total page 31 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) is Ghana’s flagship program for agricultural transformation and employment creation. Alongside other components, the program provides subsidized fertilizer, hybrid and open-pollinated seeds and other planting materials, improved extension services, and marketing support to smallholder farmers across the country. The objective of this study was to assess the implementation process of the PFJ input subsidy program in order to identify opportunities for strengthening the process. The study focused only on fertilizer distribution as a distinct complex process of importance, although some of the lessons will be applicable to other components of the PFJ program. The study applied the Process Net-Map method, a research approach that is particularly useful for assessing the coherence between formally prescribed procedures and how those procedures are implemented in practice, enabling the identification of inefficiencies and bottlenecks in a complex process. The implementation of the PFJ fertilizer subsidy program was mapped in interviews with key informants at national level and in six districts. Interviews with national-level stakeholders yielded important insights about the complex largely administrative process involved in the implementation of PFJ, which is generally unseen by beneficiaries. These administrative processes, however, have a considerable impact on the timeliness of the program and provide an outline of the intended implementation process at the local district level. The perspectives of farmers with regards to these processes were also investigated through in-depth interviews. Across the study districts we found some ambiguity and inconsistency in following the formally prescribed procedures for implementing the PFJ fertilizer subsidy program. While we found broad agreement among key informants and farmers that the program is meeting its objectives, some areas in which the implementation process for the PFJ fertilizer subsidy program could be improved are highlighted. These improvements will enhance the efficiency and impact of the program.
Download or read book A review of the Ghana Planting for Food and Jobs program 2017 2020 Implementation impact and further analysis written by Pauw, Karl and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2021-04-13 with total page 30 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report examines the evolution of farm input subsidy programs in Ghana, with a focus on the Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) initiative, which was introduced in 2017 and replaced the Fertilizer Subsidy Program (FSP) that was launched in 2008. A review of PFJ implementation reports and other official data sources reveal that information on general program features, such as beneficiary numbers, subsidized input quantities, and program budget is readily available and useful for understanding program design and implementation. National crop production estimates are also reported annually, and these provide evidence of rapid output growth in the agricultural sector, especially within the cereals subsector. However, the implementing agency, the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA), lacks a system for closely monitoring and reporting PFJ program impacts at farm-level. Consequently, most of the published information on the marginal contribution of PFJ to national crop output is based on simulations, which make strong assumptions about seeding rates, fertilizer use by crop, and input use efficiency on beneficiary farms. With this drawback in mind, these simulations show that PFJ contributed substantially to crop output growth, a result which is not implausible considering the quantities of inputs provided, but one that requires further on-farm validation. Recommendations are offered around beneficiary targeting, interpretation of employment impacts, and the need for regular monitoring of farm-level impacts, all of which will help improve transparency of the program.
Download or read book Improving the targeting of fertilizer subsidy programs in Africa south of the Sahara Perspectives from the Ghanaian experience written by Houssou, Nazaire and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2017-03-17 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper assesses whether fertilizer subsidy programs can be better targeted to resource-poor farmers using the case of Ghana and proxy means test approaches. Past fertilizer subsidy programs in the country have not been particularly targeted to the poor, even as targeting poor and smallholder farmers has become key in the program implementation guidelines. As a result, many poor farmers have not benefited from past programs. Our results show that targeting approaches based on proxy means tests that use the correlates of poverty to select beneficiary farmers can potentially improve the poverty outreach and costeffectiveness of Ghana’s fertilizer subsidy programs. Therefore, we propose that the proxy means test approach should be considered for implementing Ghana’s fertilizer subsidy programs, first in a pilot project involving a few communities, and later, if found successful, in a full-scale program.
Download or read book Farm level effects of the 2019 Ghana planting for food and jobs program An analysis of household survey data written by Asante, Felix Ankomah and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2021-07-08 with total page 46 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ghana’s rising population, coupled with erratic weather patterns and soil nutrient deficiencies, pose a significant challenge to food crop production. In responding to universal calls for actions to end poverty, the Government of Ghana (GoG) launched the flagship Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) program in 2017. PFJ is designed to promote on-farm productivity through the intensification of fertilizer subsidies and adoption of improved seeds of targeted crops, thereby enabling job creation in agriculture and other interrelated sectors. Implemented by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA), the PFJ program works in concert with other existing agricultural programs and policies to achieve the universal goal of ending hunger, achieving food security, and improving nutrition by promoting efficient and sustainable intensification and climate-proofing of agriculture by 2030 (Sustainable Development Goal 2).
Download or read book Fertilizer Quality Assessment Perception versus testing in selected Ghanaian districts written by Asante, Seth and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2021-12-23 with total page 18 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fertilizer use in Sub-Saharan Africa remains below recommended rates, contributing to low yields, and increasing poverty. Poor quality fertilizer – whether perceived or real – is often cited as a reason for low adoption rates. In Ghana, for example, there are widespread but often unsubstantiated claims of substandard fertilizers. This is a concern for farmers with limited purchasing power and without the means to independently substantiate the quality of agricultural inputs. This paper describes the agricultural input sector in Ghana, compares farmers’ perception of fertilizer quality with those of input dealers, and analyses chemical tests of fertilizers performed in a laboratory. The fertilizers were sampled from selected districts participating in the Planting for Food and Jobs initiative, a large-scale farm input subsidy program. We find that input dealers and farmers are somewhat suspicious of the quality of commercially supplied and government subsidized fertilizers. However, the true quality measures based on laboratory testing of fertilizers sold in agricultural input shops were found to largely meet the labeled chemical composition.
Download or read book Agricultural Inputs Policy Under Macroeconomic Uncertainty written by Resnick, Danielle and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2016-08-26 with total page 45 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ghana’s Fertilizer Subsidy Programme (GFSP) was initiated in 2008 in response to the global food and fuel price crisis. Although initially intended to be a temporary measure that became increasingly expensive as Ghana’s macroeconomy deteriorated, farmers, civil society organizations, and politicians began to expect the subsidy on an annual basis. This paper applies the kaleidoscope model for agricultur and food security policy change to the case of GFSP. In doing so, it uses a variety of analytical tools to highlight how many of the weak outcomes of GFSP can be attributed to the nature of the broader policy process that has surrounded GFSP as well as the underlying political and institutional context in which policy making occurs in Ghana. Based on semi-structured interviews conducted with knowledgeable stakeholders spanning the government, donor, civil society, and research communities, the paper identifies the bottlenecks that need to be addressed if the program is to be more effective in the future.
Download or read book Can better targeting improve the effectiveness of Ghana s Fertilizer Subsidy Program written by Houssou, Nazaire and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2017-02-10 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite improvements to the implementation regime of Ghana’s fertilizer subsidy program, this paper shows that considerable challenges remain in ensuring that the subsidy is targeted to farmers who need fertilizer the most. Currently, larger-scale and wealthier farmers are the main beneficiaries of subsidized fertilizer even though the stated goal is to target smallholder farmers with fertilizer subsidies. The experience of other African countries suggests that the effectiveness of fertilizer subsidies can improve with effective targeting of resource-poor smallholders. However, targeting smallholder farmers entails significant transaction costs and may even be infeasible in some cases. Faced with such challenges, Ghanaian policy makers must ponder the question of how to improve the targeting of input subsidy programs in the country. Further research is needed to identify more cost-effective approaches for achieving the goal of targeting.
Download or read book Too much of a good thing Evidence that fertilizer subsidies lead to overapplication in Egypt written by Kurdi, Sikandra and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2020-03-12 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As part of a national policy to ensure a certain level of food self-sufficiency in strategic crops, the government of Egypt subsidizes nitrogen fertilizer directly by distributing quotas of subsidized fertilizers to farmers and indirectly by subsidizing natural gas used by local fertilizer factories. The implication of this subsidy on farmers’ fertilizer demand and productivity remains unknown. Using a detailed agricultural survey collected from smallholder farmers in Upper Egypt, we show that nitrogen fertilizer application rates are substantially in excess of crop-specific agronomic recommendations. We exploit eligibility criteria and other sources of variation to show that farm plots with easier access to the subsidy tend to use more subsidized nitrogen fertilizer and less phosphate fertilizer. Easier access to the subsidy increases use of total nitrogen fertilizer per unit of land, mainly because of the increase in subsidized nitrogen fertilizer. In particular, the fertilizer subsidy program in Egypt is associated with significant overapplication of nitrogen fertilizer. Such overapplication of fertilizer is expected to adversely affect soil, water, and environmental health. Our findings have important policy implications for Egypt and other African countries known for input subsidy programs. As Egypt is currently moving on from the successful implementation of a comprehensive macroeconomic reform program towards sector-level reforms, our results suggest that eliminating fertilizer subsidies is a good place to start.
Download or read book Can Better Targeting Improve the Effectiveness of Ghana s Fertilizer Subsidy Program Lessons from Ghana and Other Countries in Africa South of the Sahara written by Nazaire Houssou and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite improvements to the implementation regime of Ghana's fertilizer subsidy program, this paper shows that considerable challenges remain in ensuring that the subsidy is targeted to farmers who need fertilizer the most. Currently, larger-scale and wealthier farmers are the main beneficiaries of subsidized fertilizer even though the stated goal is to target smallholder farmers with fertilizer subsidies. The experience of other African countries suggests that the effectiveness of fertilizer subsidies can improve with effective targeting of resource-poor smallholders. However, targeting smallholder farmers entails significant transaction costs and may even be infeasible in some cases. Faced with such challenges, Ghanaian policy makers must ponder the question of how to improve the targeting of input subsidy programs in the country. Further research is needed to identify more cost-effective approaches for achieving the goal of targeting.
Download or read book Evaluating Fertilizer Subsidies in Developing Countries written by Dana G. Dalrymple and published by . This book was released on 1975 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Self targeted fertilizer subsidies written by Banda, Chimwemwe and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2022-12-06 with total page 4 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If Malawi’s fertilizer subsidy program aims to increase food security in the country, it should strive to target the most productive farmers. Subsidy levels can be set to self-target this group of farmers. This would maximize output achieved with subsidized fertilizer and eliminate the need for costly and error-prone top-down targeting. Maximizing the productive capacity of the AIP In a previous policy note, we argued that by setting the farmer contribution to fertilizer subsidized under that Affordable Inputs Programme (AIP) so that farmer demand matches what the program can supply, the government can maximize the total amount of fertilizer available for distribution under the program (Banda et al.,2022). In this note, we argue that a second advantage of this pricing strategy is that it ensures that each subsidized bag of fertilizer has the largest possible yield response, thus maximizing the additional amount of food produced through the program.
Download or read book Old Problems in the New Solutions written by Afua Branoah Banful and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 26 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite their disappointing performance in the recent past, fertilizer subsidies have re-emerged as a tool in the agricultural strategies of many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. The new paradigm for fertilizer subsidies calls for use of such mechanisms as vouchers to target benefits to poor smallholders and public-private partnerships to develop private markets. There is some belief that with these innovations, fertilizer subsidy programs will circumvent the deleterious consequences of the programs of the past. However, there has been a glaring lack of innovation in how to prevent politics from dominating the allocation of subsidy program benefits and exacerbating inefficiencies as was the experience in earlier programs. This paper studies how vouchers, which could be used towards the purchase of fertilizer, were distributed amongst districts in Ghana's 2008 fertilizer subsidy program. We find that politics played a significant role in the allocation of vouchers. Higher numbers of vouchers were targeted to districts that the ruling party had lost in the previous presidential elections and more so in districts that had been lost by a higher margin. A district received 2 percent more vouchers for each percentage point by which the ruling party had lost the previous presidential election - this amount is both statistically and numerically significant. The analysis also shows that district poverty levels, which should have been an important consideration in an economic efficiency motivated distribution, were not a statistically significant determinant of districts' voucher allocation. The evidence that vouchers were targeted to areas in which the opposition party received strong support is suggestive of the vouchers being used for vote-buying. This finding raises the caution that despite innovations in implementing fertilizer subsidies, politically motivated allocation of subsidy benefits remains a major potential source of inefficiency.
Download or read book Fertilizer Distribution and Credit Schemes for Small scale Farmers written by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Fertilizer and Plant Nutrition Service and published by . This book was released on 1979 with total page 54 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Economic and Technical Aspects of Fertilizer Production and Use in West Africa written by Tom Zalla and published by . This book was released on 1977 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Impact of the Fertilizer Subsidy Program on the Agricultural Sector of Ghana written by Ghana. Agriculture and Agribusiness Unit and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Fertilizer Policy in Tropical Africa written by International Food Policy Research Institute and published by Muscle Shoals, Ala. : International Fertilizer Development Center ; Washington, D.C. : International Food Policy Research Institute. This book was released on 1990 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fertilizer in selected sub-saharan countries; fertilizer policy in Benin; principal constrains to fertilizer use in Cameroon; the fertilizer sector in cote D'Ivoire; the place of fertilizer in Ghana's quest for increased agricultural productivity; fertilizer policy in Kenya; fertilizer supply and demand in Malawi; fertilizer policy and programs: Nigeria's experience; fertilizer use in Senegal and perspectives; problems related to the use of fertilizers in Togo; fertilizer policy in Zambia; fertilizer use in Zimbabwe: supply, demand, policy and related problems; fertilizer consumption in sub-saharan Africa: an analysis of growth and profile of use; fertilizer supply in sub-saharan Africa - an analysis; fertilizer use in Asia: lessons from selected countryexperiences; agronomic aspects of mineral and organic fertilizer use in sub-saharan Africa; micro-socio economic research on constrains to fertilizer use in sub-saharan Africa for policy development; strategiesto enhance the dissemination of fertilizer information in the sub-saharan region.
Download or read book Evaluating the Determinants of Access to Ghana Fertilizer Subsidy Program written by Salisu Mustapha and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In line with economic conditions in 2008 and the need to boost agricultural productivity and stabilize agricultural commodity prices, the government of Ghana instituted a nationwide fertilizer subsidy program. This study analyzes the determinants of access to the Ghana Fertilizer Subsidy Program (GFSP). The paper uses cross-sectional data collected from 352 farmers in four districts in Ghana. To achieve the main objective of the study, probit and tobit models are used. This study reveals that access to the GFSP is still low (42.6%) despite the government's increasing budgetary allocation into subsidy provision over the years. The results of the probit and the tobit models indicate that access to the GFSP is largely determined by farmers' gender and political influence. It also reveals that the subsidy program does not crowd out private fertilizer retailers as farmers who buy more quantities from the commercial market are less likely to be allocated subsidy passbooks. It is therefore recommended that discrimination against women should be minimized to encourage their participation in agriculture and empower them to bring to the fore their potentials. Also, the government must encourage more private fertilizer retailers to establish sales points at vantage places to improve access to fertilizer.
