Performance of the Fruit Crop Industry in Ghana: Empirical Results and Policy Implications

by Amos Mensah
Doctoral thesis
Date of Examination:2014-11-11
Date of issue:2014-12-11
Advisor:Prof. Dr. Bernhard Brümmer
Referee:Prof. Dr. Bernhard Brümmer
Referee:Prof. Dr. Stephan von Cramon-Taubadel
Referee:Prof. Dr. Matin Qaim
Persistent Address: http://dx.doi.org/10.53846/goediss-4819

 

 

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Abstract

English

This study investigates the causes of declining output performance in the Ghanaian fruit pro-duction industry. Average industrial output level is lagging far behind that of competing na-tions (for instance, the productivity of Ghana pineapple farms is 60 T/Ha compared to 120 T/Ha for Cost Rica (Gatune et al, 2013) despite Ghana’s excellent relative comparative ad-vantage (i.e. labour, climate, location) for fruit production. The inability of the industry to meet both local and export demand-volumes has caused some major processing and exporting companies struggling to get raw materials to close down or relocated to other countries lead-ing to job losses in both rural and urban areas, loss of international market share and foreign exchange the country urgently need. The aim of this study is therefore to identify and ana-lysed the factors hindering successful and efficient performance of the fruit crop industry (i.e. we assessed why Ghana’s fruit crop production industry remains below its potential). In light of the above mentioned problems, our study, which uses cross-country farm-household survey data to identify and analyze potential ways of enhancing farmers’ efficiency of production in the fruit industry, is a giant step in the right direction. Empirical insight gained from this study could serve as a valuable guideline to policy makers in formulating future performance en-hancing programs to boost output in the industry. In order to effectively study the industry, the three major fruit sectors (i.e. mango production sector, pineapple production sector and banana production sector) of the industry were selected and subjected to a detailed empirical analysis. The empirical results are obtained using a cross-country farm-household survey data of fruit farmers in all the major fruit producing regions of Ghana. Therefore, this dissertation is a collection of three papers organised into three chapters (2 – 4). Based on economic theory and statistical tests, different econometric estimation techniques were employed to analyse the research questions which were posed in each essay.
Keywords: Ghana Fruit Crop Industry; Stochastic Production Frontier; Metafrontier; Technical Efficiency; Meta-Technology-Ratio; Technology Adoption; Output Distance Function
 
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