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Agricultural Trade, Farm Management, Economics of Food Safety

Both undergraduate and postgraduate studies in Agribusiness and Agricultural Economics.

The pineapple production sector plays a very significant role in the Ghanaian horticultural industry. Production and export of fresh pineapple has been Ghana’s most developed high-value supply chain. However, the introduction of the GlobalGAP food safety standard in 2007 resulted in a fall in smallholder farmers’ participation in exportable pineapple production and subsequently led to declining trends in pineapple exports. The Ghanaian horticultural industry received quite a number of interventions over the years aimed at revitalizing the horticultural export sector and enhancing international competitiveness. However, the pineapple export sub-sector is still constrained with production and market access challenges meaning the sector struggles to survive.

The GlobalGAP standard compliance case is an appropriate way of explaining how smallholder farmers make informed decisions concerning the adoption of new farm practices. The case presents a careful evaluation of technical, institutional and socio-economic factors influencing a farmer’s decision to comply or not to comply with the GlobalGAP standard. Students should be able to apply farm management decision-making concepts and tools such as profit maximization and binary choice modelling techniques to explain a farmers’ final decisions on GlobalGAP standard compliance. This case should enable students to appreciate key factors constraining agricultural export trade performance in developing countries. The case should also contribute to students’ understanding of smallholder farmers’ decisions on food safety standards compliance, particularly GlobalGAP, and the challenges associated with the entire compliance process. Moreover, this case should provide students with possible policy considerations geared towards making food safety standards compliance easier, effective and sustainable in developing countries so as to enhance market access while ensuring food quality and safety along high-value food supply chains.

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CSS 7 Management Science

The purpose of this paper is to assess the adherence, constraints and key factors associated with smallholder pineapple farmers’ compliance with Global working group for Good Agricultural Practice (GLOBALGAP) standards in the Akuapem-South Municipal area, Ghana. It utilizes the modeling of socio-economic, farm, market and institutional factors influencing smallholder farmers’ compliance with GLOBALGAP standards. This paper aims to enhance smallholder farmers’ compliance with food safety standards in particular GLOBALGAP so they can continue to participate in international food trade.

The study uses mainly primary data solicited from 150 randomly selected smallholder farmers. Descriptive statistics are employed in estimating compliant farmers’ rate of adherence with standards requirements and identifying constraints of farmers while a probit regression model is used to determine the factors influencing GLOBALGAP compliance decision of farmers.

Findings of the study show that compliant farmers’ rate of adherence with the standard is about 90 percent and this is below the minor musts compliance criteria of 95 percent. The results also indicate that lack of access to farm credits, high cost of farm inputs and high cost of labor are the major constraints to GLOBALGAP compliance. Factors found to positively influence farmers’ compliance decision are number of pineapple farms, access to off-farm income, access to market information and extension services. However, compliance is negatively influenced by age.

Majority of Ghanaian smallholder pineapple farmers are not GLOBALGAP certified. The study was limited to Akuapem-South because most farmers produce pineapple for the export market and are certified under the Option II GLOBALGAP group certification.

This paper brings to bear issues confronting food safety standards compliance among smallholder farmers in developing countries, particularly Ghana.