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Sustainable intensification amongst Ghana's pineapple farmers: the complexity of an innovation determines the effectiveness of its training

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2017

David Wuepper ,
Johannes Sauer  and
Linda Kleemann
David Wuepper*
Affiliation:
Agricultural Production and Resource Economics, Technical University Munich, Germany
Johannes Sauer
Affiliation:
Agricultural Production and Resource Economics, Technical University Munich, Germany
Linda Kleemann
Affiliation:
Group Poverty Reduction, Equity, and Development, The Kiel Institute for the World Economy, Kiel, Germany
*
*Corresponding author. Email: david.wuepper@tum.de
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Abstract

To foster the adoption of sustainable intensification practices amongst Ghana's farmers, they are widely promoted through training sessions provided by development organizations, companies, and the public extension service. We investigate whether these training sessions are effective and find that they are effective only for the diffusion of organic fertilizers but not for mulching. We suggest that this comes from the complexity of the innovations. Mulching is one of the simplest sustainable intensification technologies. It diffuses easily through peer learning and, after an initial training delivered to a critical mass of farmers, does not require training anymore. The use of organic fertilizers, in contrast, requires more specific knowledge and adaptation, which limits the effectiveness of peer learning and increases the effectiveness of training. This suggests that to achieve a widespread diffusion of sustainable intensification amongst Ghana's farmers, training sessions should focus on those practices that are complex and thus difficult to learn from peers.

Keywords

Agricultural trainingdiffusion of innovationextension servicelearningsustainable intensificationorganic practices
Type
Research Article
Information
Environment and Development Economics , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , February 2018 , pp. 98 - 119
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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