Edward Martey

• Doctor of Philosophy in Agricultural and Applied Economics
• Economist at Council for Scientific and Industrial Research

The objectives of this study were to: (1) define near-future (2030) trends for various indicators that are likely to affect future cowpea demand in West Africa; and to (2) identify near-future regional- and country-level market segments for cowpea in West Africa. The results from this study should be used to better characterize near-future Target P...

Several studies have examined the role of safety-net programme in mitigating agricultural production risks. However, there is a lack of evidence on how non-cognitive skills (NCS) influence farmers’ participation in safety net programmes. This study investigates the relationship between farmers’ noncognitive skills and willingness to participate in...

This study examines the relationship between aspirations gaps and agricultural diversification in an irrigated ecology in Northern Ghana. Using panel data and a fixed‐effects model, we find that moderate increases in aspirations provide optimal incentives for agricultural diversification, while aspirations that exceed a threshold lead to aspiration...

This study employs panel survey data combined with geo‐coded information on household locations and civil conflict to examine the relationship between civil conflict and per capita food expenditure. Utilizing the panel structure and applying fixed effects models, the analysis shows that civil conflict and fatality rates significantly reduce per cap...

Given the extended hours demanded by the labour market and the health risks posed by pollution from nonrenewable energy sources, the question of whether households are willing to prioritise clean energy over leisure remains unresolved. This study addresses this gap by investigating the impact of time constraints, encompassing both paid and unpaid w...

This report examines the economic viability of seed businesses for dryland crops, with a special focus on sorghum, millet, and groundnut, in sub-Saharan Africa. It explores the profitability and growth potential of seed enterprises (including community-based ones), highlighting key challenges including limited access to quality seeds, low private-s...

Agricultural commercialisation is a strategy for transiting farmers from subsistence to market-oriented agriculture for rural economic growth. Several studies have linked agricultural commercialization to productivity, poverty, expenditure, and food security with little attention to sustainable land management (SLM). Using panel household survey da...

Climate change, soil degradation, and traditional farming practices drive internal migration in developing nations, exacerbating food insecurity, malnutrition, and poverty. While this evidence is well established in the literature, there is limited evidence of how internal migration can influence the adoption of sustainable agricultural practices (...

Formation of aspirations and ensuring food security are pivotal developmental concerns, capturing the attention of development practitioners, researchers, and scholars. Although aspirations play a role in reinforcing external factors to reshape welfare outcomes, the influence of on-farm agronomic demonstrations on aspiration formation and food secu...

The existing empirical literature on the impact of food price shocks on food consumption has primarily concentrated on market-purchased foods, offering limited insights into home-produced foods and the quality of food. Addressing this gap, our study employs panel data from Ghana to investigate the relationship between exposure to positive maize pri...

This study examines the link between parental time poverty and child body mass index, prevalence of overweight and obsesity. The study relied on data from the seventh round of the Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS), a nationally representative household level data. Employing the standard instrumental variable (IV) to control for endogeneity indic...

The global banana industry faces a significant threat from Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense Tropical Race 4 (TR4). While prior research has concentrated on TR4’s dissemination, reproductive conditions, and resistant banana varieties, this study employs a socioeconomic and cost-benefit analysis to explore the vulnerability of banana producers to TR...

Considering the impediments in access to agricultural lands and tenure insecurity, which negatively impact food insecurity and rural poverty levels, there is a need to understand how financial inclusion can improve land ownership, tenure security, and investment decisions. This chapter explores the empirical linkages between financial inclusion, ag...

This study examines the link between employment-related time poverty and food away from home (FAFH) behaviour. We use a large representative sample of Australians drawn from five waves of panel data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey. Endogeneity biases stemming from reverse causality and omitted variable iss...

In this study, we primarily assess the relationship between social safeguards and the living standards of local communities in different ecological zones of Ghana, relying on data from the seventh round of the Ghana Living Standard Survey (GLSS 7) and publicly available policy documents from the Ghana Statistical Service and the Forestry Commission...

Groundnut is an important cash crop and a diet component for rural households in sub-Saharan Africa. However, Aflatoxin contamination remains a barrier to promoting groundnut-based food products as food levels above maximum limit (ML) can adversely affect human health. Three objectives were set, namely, (i) to characterize the post-harvest operatio...

The Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) seven highlights the need to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all. Improving access to reliable and affordable modern energy for cooking have far-reaching benefits on human health and the environment. In most developing countries, the use of solid biomass fuel (SBF) for...

In this study, we primarily assess the relationship between social safeguards and the living standards of local communities in different ecological zones of Ghana. This research aims to assist policymakers and stakeholders to make informed and appropriate decisions when developing social safeguards for emission reductions projects. Principal compon...

Obesity (overweight) is a widespread concern not only in high‐income nations but also in low‐income countries across sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA). Although many studies attribute this trend to economic development triggering a shift in nutrition patterns within SSA, they tend overlook a critical factor: the level at which these determinants are measure...

This paper presents estimates of the association between maize yield and weather using survey data from Ghana, Mali and Nigeria, allowing for the possibility that farmers’ choices about agricultural technology may themselves depend on weather. We find that the association between yield and weather varies substantially according to these choices. We...

Our study highlights the implications of the Russia-Ukraine War on agricultural inputs supply and selected food commodities prices. The study further elaborated on the policy responses to build resilient food systems in Ghana.

This study applies a simple financial model to compare the profitability of selected grain storage protection technologies (PICS and Poly sacks) in Ghana. To address the objectives, market survey data of soybean traders who represent a section of the soybean supply chain was used. Per the model, the price seasonality for profitable soybean storage...

Most studies on the impacts of non‐tariff measures (NTMs) on economic outcomes are at the macro‐level with limited micro‐level studies. This study uses primary data on 604 commercial farm households in Ghana to examine the relationship between NTMs and household welfare outcomes. The results show that NTMs are positively associated with assets, hou...

The ethnic diversity–financial inclusion nexus remains one of the least explored topics in the literature despite global attempts to promote cultural mixing due to its socioeconomic benefits. We contribute to the literature by examining the link between ethnic diversity and financial inclusion using five-wave panel data from South Africa, a country...

Using exogenous variation in trade shocks, this study examines the association between nontariff measures and cereal production allocation decisions among commercial farmers in Ghana. We study nontariff measures from both an extensive (experience of nontariff measures) and an intensive (cost of nontariff measures) perspective using a sample of 455...

Accelerating the education of children and reducing child labor in agriculture remains an important development pathway to preventing intergenerational poverty and achieving the sustainable development goals. While several studies have analyzed the impact of ecological stressors on yield, income, and food security, there is limited understanding of...

Assessing gender differences in trait preferences of groundnut value chain actors can influence the effectiveness of crop breeding programs, the adoption of developed technologies, and policy interventions. However, there is limited evidence to support decisions that meet end users’ demands, given that most studies do not disaggregate trait prefere...

To reduce the high incidence of poverty in rural households, agricultural modernization using innovations has been pursued by governments and actors in the agricultural innovation system (AIS). This study analyzed how agricultural innovations and farmer-actor interactions in the AIS contribute to poverty outcomes among agricultural households in Gh...

To have a broader understanding of the rice value chain and the crucial role of processors, the World Food Program (WFP) engaged the Savanna Agricultural Research Institute (SARI) of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) to conduct both a landscape analysis on local rice production in Ghana and the potential for fortification.

The study investigated risk perception, adoption of risk management instruments and the intensity of adoption among irrigated-rice farmers in the Upper East Region of Ghana. A multistage sampling technique was employed to draw 477 farmers for the study. The perception index, multivariate probit and Poisson regression models were used for the analys...

Home gardens have been an integral part of the recent food‐based interventions aimed at stimulating changes in dietary patterns and improving nutrition. However, evidence of their effects on food security, dietary quality, child anthropometry and incomes is limited, particularly among vulnerable populations groups. Using panel data from a sample of...

Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has witnessed increasing water scarcity and demand for additional water resources due to climate change. However, lack of information and access to irrigation scheduling decision support tools may limit smallholder farmers' ability to manage irrigation water efficiently for sustainable crop production. To overcome the compl...

This study analyzes the impact of a component of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) technology—Striga-resistant maize (SRM) varieties and mineral fertilizer—on maize yield and food security using two rounds of panel data in Ghana. The study employs a multinomial endogenous switching regression model and finds that joint adoption of SRM varieties and m...

Studies on involuntary pension participation in general and among farmers, in particular, are scanty. Therefore, this paper aims at investigating cocoa farmers’ awareness of pension schemes as well as assessing their willingness to participate in a cocoa pension scheme. A sample of 450 cocoa farmers were interviewed using a structured questionnaire...

Most studies on the novel COVID-19 pandemic have focused mainly on human health, food systems, and employment with limited studies on how farmers implement sustainable agricultural practices (SAPs) in response to the pandemic. This study examines how perceptions of COVID-19 shocks influence the adoption of SAPs among smallholder farmers in Ghana. W...

Demographic projections globally indicate an increase in the elderly population due to declining mortality rates resulting from technological advancement and improvement in medicine. This study estimates the extra cost of an elderly household member. Further, it examines the relationship and mechanism between the elderly and household welfare in Gh...

Despite the importance of energy in countries' economies, the vast majority of people, especially in developing countries, live under the energy poverty line. To mitigate this trend, several policy options have been enacted to promote the use of clean and modern fuels given the targets set out in the Sustainable Development Goal Two (SDG2). However...

This study provides new evidence on the determining factors of cropland allocation decisions within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic by using the seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) model on 309 farm households. The results reveal that socio-economic, production, institutional, and political factors significantly influence the choice and size...

Purpose This study examines the comparative link between mobile money and entrepreneurship in East Africa. Apart from analysing our data to examine locational, gender and age heterogeneities in the mobile money-entrepreneurship nexus, we explore the potential roles of digital savings and access to digital credit in serving as transmission channels...

This study examines the relationship between parental time poverty, child work, and school attendance in Ghana using data from the sixth and seventh rounds of the Ghana Living Standard Survey (GLSS6 and GLSS7). Results of the analysis indicate an increasing decline in child enrolment in public schools (from 9% to 6%) among time poor household heads...

This article examines the effect of off-farm work on cooking energy choice and time poverty using data from the seventh round of the Ghana Living Standard Survey (GLSS) while controlling for a wide range of socio-demographic, community, and other geographic factors. We identified three main fuel types (dirty, transition, and clean fuel) and constru...

This paper examines how climate change adaptation impacts on farm productivity and the ability of households to accumulate assets in the context of a developing economy. We apply an endogenous switching regression to data obtained from 1440 farmers in Ghana. Our model, which accounts for endogeneity and selection bias, allows us to simultaneously d...

The aim of this study was to understand the impact of fertilizer use on maize yields in Ghana based on a survey among 1,363 farmers. Farmers were grouped into four typologies using Principal Component Analysis and stepwise regression to analyze the effects of fertilizer and other factors on yield and nutrient use efficiency (NUE). A partial factor...

This technical report addressed several issues. Particularly, it includes, fertilizer use by crops, crop yield and its drivers, food security and poverty among farm households.

This study employed the Double Hurdle (DH) regression model to identify factors that influence access to market information, market participation and intensity of participation decisions of maize farmers in the Mion and West Gonja Districts of Ghana. The results showed that institutional, demography, and location dynamics significantly influence ac...

This brief provided evidence on the poverty and food and nutritional security among farm households in Ghana

This policy brief analysed the fertilizer use and yields of major crops, specifically, maize, rice and soybean in Ghana.

Background The Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) seven highlights the need to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all. Improving access to reliable and affordable modern energy for cooking have far-reaching benefits on human health. This study examines the relationship between the adoption of solid biomass fuel...

This study relies on a triple-hurdle model to estimate the factors that determine farmers’ decision to participate in a peer dissemination project and then share the knowledge gained with other farmers. The first hurdle estimates show that proximity, income and social contacts determine participation. The second hurdle estimates further show that a...

Poorly managed waste impacts negatively on water bodies and the atmosphere; and may limit the quality of human life. This study evaluates the effect of waste management on health outcomes, using nationally representative data of 16,772 households in Ghana. I employ the endogenous switching regression (ESR) and maximum simulated likelihood (MSL) tec...

Despite sustained efforts to promote climate-smart technologies in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), adoption remains low. At the same time, the downside risks associated with climate change and food insecurity are becoming acute. Improved cowpea varieties are climate-smart and contribute to food and nutrition security. Limited evidence exists, however, re...

Several studies have highlighted the adoption of clean energy fuels and the militating factors since the launch of the Sustainable Development Goals. However, the lack of empirical research on the role of time poverty limits the formulation of holistic evidence-based policies in addressing the widespread adoption of solid biomass fuel (SBF). This p...

Agricultural training programs remain one of the primary mechanisms for disseminating modern and climate-smart technologies with the aim to improve the welfare outcomes of smallholder farmers. With persistent low agricultural productivity in Sub Saharan Africa (SSA), the content, effectiveness, and mode of delivery of training programs remain a deb...

The COVID-19 pandemic is a global health issue with disruption effects in the agricultural food systems especially in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) where most of the population is engaged in the agricultural sector. While prices of food commodities continue to increase, farmers are likely to be food insecure or market-oriented by allocating land resourc...

Agricultural training programs remain one of the primary mechanisms for disseminating modern and climate smart technologies with the aim to improve the welfare outcomes of smallholder farmers. With persistent low agricultural productivity in Sub Saharan Africa (SSA), the content, effectiveness, and mode of delivery of training programs remain a deb...

This study examines the relationship between food hardship, school attendance, and education expenditure using nationally representative data from a survey of 14,009 households in Ghana. After controlling for household, and geographical characteristics and using a standard instrumental variable approach to control for unobservable characteristics,...

Cassava farmers from three production districts in Northern and Savannah Regions were sampled for their perceptions on drought, production constraints and preferences for new cassava varieties. The levels of agreement of farmers' responses were tested using Kendall's Coefficient of Concordance (KOC). The results indicated lack of credit as the majo...

The COVID-19 pandemic is a global health issue with disruption effects in the agricultural food systems especially in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) where most of the population is engaged in the agricultural sector. While prices of food commodities continue to increase, farmers are likely to be food insecure or market-oriented by allocating land resourc...

This study examined the factors influencing the exports of raw coconut from the Philippines to Japan, Hong Kong and China using the gravity model and time series data spanning 1961–2017. In the short-run, the results showed that a one-year lag of the export quantity of raw coconut influenced the current export quantity. The one-year lag of the expo...

Climate variability and shocks threaten current systems of agricultural production and food security in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), leading to the promotion of soil, and water conservation measures to enhance the resilience of farming systems. This paper analyzes the factors influencing the probability and intensity of adoption of integrated soil fer...

This article examines the effect of international migration on household expenditure, labor outcomes, and poverty on the left-behind household members in Ghana using nationally representative data. The study contributes to the literature in terms of the methodology employed to reinforce the welfare effect of international migration in a developing...

This study provides new evidence of the impact of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) – row planting and drought-tolerant maize varieties - on farm and welfare outcomes by estimating a multinomial endogenous switching regression model that corrects for selection bias and farmer heterogeneity in CSA choice. Application of our model to panel observations...

Agricultural commercialisation is a critical pathway for economic development in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). However, the lack of market information may impede this development. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first paper to examine market information and preferences for soybean quality in a developing-world context. We seek to und...

Peanut production contributes to food security in northern Ghana due to its ability to tolerate drought and survive on marginal lands. This notwithstanding, poor handling along the value chain favors aflatoxin contamination, a threat to human and animal life. Farmer-led improved storage practice, a potential solution to aflatoxin contamination, hav...

In our application of Cragg's (double hurdle) model, we explicitly address functional form misspecification by first using nonparametric regression to identify the functional relationship between aflatoxin infestation and a vector of agronomic and socioeconomic variables. Based on the established functional forms, we then apply Cragg's model to est...

Drought and high temperatures are major threats to sustainable food production and consequently the livelihoods of the majority of Africans who depend on fragile agricultural systems. As a response to these threats, climate-smart agricultural technologies, such as drought-tolerant maize (DTM) varieties, have been developed and promoted on the conti...

Soybean production has been widely promoted in sub-Saharan Africa as a means of improving rural household income. Numerous studies point to poor adoption levels, low yield levels, and limited profitability among smallholder farmers. Poor performance of soybean among smallholders generates numerous hypotheses as to the root causes. One logical cause...

Soybean production has been widely promoted in sub-Saharan Africa as a means of improving rural household income. Numerous studies point to poor adoption levels, low yield levels, and limited profitability among smallholder farmers. Poor performance of soybean among smallholders generates numerous hypotheses as to the root causes. One logical cause...

This study examined the factors influencing the exports of raw coconut from the Philippines to Japan, Hong Kong and China using the gravity model and time series data spanning 1961–2017. In the short-run, the results showed that a one-year lag of the export quantity of raw coconut influenced the current export quantity. The one-year lag of the expo...

Purpose-Agricultural commercialization is a critical pathway for economic development in Sub Saharan Africa (SSA). However, the lack of market information may impede this development. This paper employs discrete choice models to investigate the nature of information markets associated with the nascent soybean trade in Sub-Saharan Africa. Specifical...

Poorly managed waste impacts negatively on water bodies, and the atmosphere leading to a reduction in the quality of human life. In this article, I examine the effect of different modes of waste management on health outcomes, measured by the number of days suffered or hospitalized due to ill health and the total household health expenditure per adu...

4 Soybean production has been widely promoted in Sub Saharan Africa (SSA) as a means of 5 improving rural household income. Numerous studies point to poor adoption levels, low yield 6 levels, and limited profitability among smallholder farmers. Poor performance of soybean among 7 smallholders generates numerous hypotheses as to the root causes. One...

Peanut production contributes to food security in northern Ghana due to its ability to tolerate drought and survive on marginal lands. This notwithstanding, poor handling along the value chain favors aflatoxin contamination, a threat to human and animal life. Farmer-led improved storage practice, a potential solution to aflatoxin contamination, hav...

Hybrid rice (Oryza sativa L) cultivars exploit hybrid vigor to break the yield ceiling of their inbred counterpart thereby increasing productivity per unit area. Crop varieties released in developing countries are often poorly adopted as a result of their failure to meet farmer and consumer trait preferences. This study was therefore conducted to i...

Purpose Production credit is essential for enhancing the technical efficiency (TE) and the welfare of smallholder farmers in Africa. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of credit on smallholders’ TE using cross-sectional data from 223 maize-producing households in Northern Ghana. Design/methodology/approach Due to the exogenous as...

Soil infertility is a major challenge that leads to high levels of food insecurity and poverty. Soil infertility has led to the introduction of fertilizer subsidy programs (FSP) across Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) to increase fertilizer use. However, poor targeting, lack of effective coordination, and within-country and cross-border leakages have the d...

Soil infertility is a major challenge that leads to high levels of food insecurity and poverty. Soil infertility has led to the introduction of fertilizer subsidy programs (FSP) across Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) to increase fertilizer use. However, poor targeting, lack of effective coordination, and within-country and cross-border leakages have the d...

This study uses a national household living standard survey and bivariate probit to assess how variations in tenure mode influence the choice of energy sources for lighting and cooking. Results indicate that tenure mode has heterogeneous effect on the lighting and cooking energy choice. Relative to owner-occupied unit, renters use other fuel (firew...

This study relies on a triple-hurdle model (consisting of a probit, ordered probit and ordinary least squares) to estimate the factors that determine farmers' decision to participate in a dissemination project, their choice of level of participation and the intensity of scaling or number of farmers that participants shared their knowledge with thro...

Most soils in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are substantially degraded and are in need of restoration to enhance sustainable food production. This is a harder problem given that population is projected to increase with a corresponding increase in demand for food. Organic fertilizer can improve soil health by reducing the rate of nutrient leaching. Howev...

We present results from the baseline Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index+Soybean Modules (WEAI+), which was implemented among men and women smallholder farmers in Ghana's rural Northern Region. The WEAI+ provides a framework for quantitatively analyzing gender equity among respondents in four local districts that varied in soybean production....

This paper established a positive relationship between market orientation and intensity of commercialization among rural farm households in northern Ghana. The IV Tobit regression estimate suggests that intensity of maize commercialization is significantly determined by education, agro-ecology, household size, total livestock units, farm size, acce...

Background: The rapid growth of mobile phones in Ghana has opened up the possibility of delivering timely and useful weather and market information to farmers at costs lower than traditional agricultural extension services. In this paper, we assess the usefulness, constraints, and factors likely to influence farmers’ decisions to patronize mobile p...