Abstract:
Cocoa rehabilitation (CR) for restoring damaged, old, and moribund trees to
raise yields and revenue from production is one of the current initiatives to
increase Ghana’s cocoa bean output. Cocoa cultivation has a crucial economic
and social role in Ghana. The study examined the perceived impact of the Sun
Shaded Agro-Forestry (SCAFS) project on the livelihood of cocoa farmers in
the Western North Region of Ghana. The study was carried out (using a
descriptive survey design) in the Essam and Adabokrom cocoa districts using
200 farmers. Both closed, and open-ended interview schedules were used to
elicit responses from the farmers. Also, most of the SCAFS beneficiaries had
been small-scale (less than 1.0ha for cocoa rehabilitation) farmers for at least
ten years. Farmers suggested that strengths of the project were the provision of
economic trees, monitoring of project farm and extension, provision of cocoa
seedlings, and cutting and treatment of cocoa farms while weaknesses were late
arrival of fertilizer, unreliable and inadequate source of rain, inadequate inputs,
land tenure constraints and untimely provision of planting material. However,
the farmers suggested the early arrival of fertilizer, provision of irrigation
schemes, adequate provision of inputs, payment of compensation to farmers,
reduction in the cost of inputs, provision of soft loans, and stakeholder
engagement on land tenure barriers as some solutions to the problems. The
project was perceived to have had a moderate impact on the livelihoods of the
farmers. Also, socio-demographic/farm-related characteristics accounted for
17% of the variations in beneficiary farmers’ livelihoods impact of the project,
with the sex of the respondent as the best predictor.
