Performance of vegetable production and marketing in peri-urban Kumasi, Ghana

Abstract

Vegetable production and marketing play an important role in providing income and employment for a significant proportion of small holder farmers and traders in Ghana. Yet, farmers are dissatisfied, claiming that they earn less marketing margins than is due them as compared to traders in the value chain. Due to lack of a holistic assessment of actors’ performance, this assertion remains unjustifiable. It is against this backdrop that this study investigates the performance of farmers, wholesalers and retailers along the investment channels of three major leafy vegetables (spring onions, lettuce and cabbage) in peri-urban Kumasi. Using a two-stage sampling technique, a total of 217 actors comprising 147 farmers, 30 wholesalers and 40 retailers, were sampled. Marketing margin analysis and returns on investments (ROIs) were used to assess the performance of actors’ investments. Results show that vegetable production is dominated by males (91 percent) and trading by females (83 percent of wholesalers and 100 percent of retailers) respectively. Wholesalers recorded the highest yearly marketing margins for spring onions and cabbage (GH¢ 3 369 and GH¢ 17 376) (1US$ = GH¢ 3.6), while farmers obtained the highest yearly margins (GH¢ 3 630) for lettuce. Farmers obtained the most ROIs of 28, 145 and 79 percents for spring onions, lettuce and cabbage respectively. Based on accrued ROIs, the study concludes that farmers are more efficient in the investments in these vegetables than traders. Information flow gap was found to be a major cause of farmers’ scepticism on margin distribution because 76 percent of farmers had no information on market prices of products. It is recommended that an efficient policy on market price information system for vegetables be implemented via convenient means such as farmer associations and weekly radio broadcasts of product prices to all actors