Adoption of the cocoa (Theobroma cacao) production technologies recommended to cocoa farmers by Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana (CRIG) had been low, leading to yield and production levels below potential. To investigate this issue, a formal socio-economic sample survey of 300 cocoa farmers selected randomly, by a multi-stage sampling technique, from all the cocoa growing regions of Ghana was conducted with a structured questionnaire for the individual interviews. The adoption rates of CRIG-recommended technologies such as control of capsids with insecticides, control of black pod disease with fungicides, weed control manually or with herbicides, planting hybrid cocoa varieties and fertilizer application were 10.3%, 7.5%, 3.7%, 44.0% and 33.0%, respectively. Adoption models indicated that credit, number of cocoa farms owned by the farmer, gender, age of the cocoa farm, migration, cocoa farm size, and cocoa yield affected the adoption decisions of cocoa farmers concerning the CRIG-recommended technologies analyzed in this study

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4508 ABSTRACTThe main purpose of this study was to analyze the economic efficiency of resource utilization in cocoa production of the cocoa farmers in Ghana to provide information for effective application and management of farm inputs on cocoa farms and policy recommendation. A random sample of 300 farmers in the Eastern, Ashanti, BrongAhafo, Central, Volta and Western regions of Ghana were selected, using the multistage sampling approach. Individual farmers were interviewed by using questionnaires. Descriptive and inferential analyses of the survey data were performed. Regression analysis was employed to estimate the Cobb-Douglas production function from the farm data for the measurement of technical efficiency of the cocoa farmers. The estimated elasticity from the production function and prices of input and output were subsequently used to calculate the measures of allotment efficiency of resource use by the farmers. The coefficients for household size, cocoa farm size, quantity of insecticides, quantity of fungicides, and quantity of fertilizer were 0.261, 0.514, 0.273, 0.090 and 0.325, respectively. The quantity of fertilizer applied to the cocoa farm had the highest marginal physical product (133.11 kg/ bag), and that of quantity of fungicides variable (1.39 kg/satchet) was lowest. Household size, farm size, insecticides, fungicides and fertilizer were found to have statistically significant impact on cocoa output. The sum of elasticities of the factors included in the Cobb-Douglas production function was 1.463, which was more than one, implying that the cocoa farmers were operating in the increasing returns to scale. There were incidences of inefficiencies in the management of resources in cocoa cultivation by cocoa farmers since some resources were underutilized and others over-utilized. Farmers are advised to increase the use of household members, insecticides, fungicides and fertilizer while reducing the use of forest land through increased land productivity instead of land expansion to ensure efficient use of resource in cocoa production. However, the environmental impacts of these farm activities should be assessed to ensure sustainable cocoa production.

Maize yield was not significantly affected by increased plant density but it increased with nitrogen fertilizer. Economic analyses showed that the marginal rate of return in applying 90 kg N was 113-194%, while 135 kg/ha gave 120-248%.

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