Adoption of improved white yam (Dioscorea rotundata) varieties in Ghana: The role of farm and farmer characteristics

Yams (Dioscorea spp) in Ghana are important food staples and the most important non-traditional export crop contributing to foreign exchange and incomes of smallholder producers. Research and development of the crop over the years produced and release three improved Dioscorea rotundata varieties in 2005. However, adoptions of these varieties have been very low. Using cross-sectional data from 544 randomly selected yam farmers and employing the logit model, the farm and farmer characteristics that influence the adoption of yam varieties were assessed. Results revealed the awareness level of improved yam varieties at 50% and low adoption rate of improved yam varieties at about 6%. Factors found to significantly influence adoption were awareness, education, distance to farm and extension access. The study suggests the need to create more awareness and education on the improved yam varieties in order to sensitize farmers and encourage adoption. There is also the need to improve research extension linkage system to enable technology knowledge transfer to extension staff for easy diffusion to farmers.