Skip to main content
Knowledge4Policy
Knowledge for policy

Supporting policy with scientific evidence

We mobilise people and resources to create, curate, make sense of and use knowledge to inform policymaking across Europe.

  • Publication | 2023

Mobile agricultural extension delivery and climate-smart agricultural practices in a time of a pandemic: Evidence from southern Ghana

Global Food and Nutrition Security

Cocoa is one of Ghana's most important crops but suffers from declining yields due to variable weather conditions, soil degradation, insects, and diseases. Climate Smart Agriculture practices were suggested to tackle the problems. 

During the Covid-19 era, Ghana’s cocoa sector relied strongly on mobile phone agriculture for extension delivery services, aiming to enhance climate-smart agricultural activities and overcome physical limitations. The study investigated the effectiveness of mobile phone agriculture in extension delivery.  

Even before the pandemic, the advisory service was criticized: important information that is critical for production and farm management was not communicated in time. The reasons for this are: the high advisor-farmer ratio of 1:1500 makes it difficult to reach everyone in time, no clear responsibilities, too many non-advisory tasks, large areas of operation without logistical support, lack of regular training for advisors to update their knowledge, lack of research findings that can be implemented by farmers and duplication of services by various agencies.  

The Ghanaian government through the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) in collaboration with private companies introduced farmer-friendly mobile apps such as Cocoa-link (initiated by Hersheys), Farming Solution (Solidaridad), and MergeData (Farmerline) to send CSA information to cocoa farmers to improve mobile phone advisory (MPA) extension delivery.  

The main results and conclusions of the study are: 

  • The advisors (CEA) have taken on the work associated with the digitalization of extension:

    • CEA have the competences to efficiently use mobile phones

    • They converted climate-smart agriculture-related information into messages that could be communicated with mobile phones.

    • Information was provided timely

  • Funding (for airtime, phone maintenance) in this case was no problem due to the involvement of private actors;

  • CEA are convinced of the importance of CSA as a means to build resilience, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and to reduce farmers’ vulnerability and increasing their capacity to better adapt to climate change and better cope with risk and think that MPA contributed to this.

  • An intense MPA delivery resulted in increased knowledge of CSA

  • Use of MPA is influenced by age (rather younger farmers were more receptive to MPA) and educational level.

  • Still more effort needs to be made to reach underserved cocoa communities