Energy and water mapping of the cocoa value chain in Ghana

Welfare implications of participating in agri‐value chains among vegetable farmers in Northern Ghana

“…where V* i is a binary decision indicator, which equals one if farmer i participates in agri-value chains, and zero otherwise; φ denotes a vector of unknown parameters to be estimated; X i represents a vector of observable factors. These include age, education, gender, household size, mobile phone ownership, irrigation, farm size, access to credit, farmer group membership, extension visits, distance to available farm plots and location variables, drawn from existing literature (e.g., Abdul-Rahaman & Abdulai, 2020;Awafo & Owusu, 2022;Kafle et al, 2022;Ogutu et al, 2020;Rao & Qaim, 2011;Tray et al, 2021;Zhang et al, 2019). ω i is the error term.…”

“…However, the utility difference ($${V}^{* }$$) is unobservable, but can be specified as a function of observable factors in a latent variable framework as follows: $$${V}_{i}^{* }=\varphi {X}_{i}+{\omega }_{i},\text{with}\,{V}_{i}=\left\{\begin{array}{c}1\,\text{if}\,{V}_{i}^{* }\gt 0\\ 0\,\text{otherwise}\end{array}\right.$$$where $${V}_{i}^{* }$$ is a binary decision indicator, which equals one if farmer $$i$$ participates in agri‐value chains, and zero otherwise; $$\varphi $$ denotes a vector of unknown parameters to be estimated; $${X}_{i}$$ represents a vector of observable factors. These include age, education, gender, household size, mobile phone ownership, irrigation, farm size, access to credit, farmer group membership, extension visits, distance to available farm plots and location variables, drawn from existing literature (e.g., Abdul‐Rahaman & Abdulai, 2020; Awafo & Owusu, 2022; Kafle et al, 2022; Ogutu et al, 2020; Rao & Qaim, 2011; Tray et al, 2021; Zhang et al, 2019). $${\omega }_{i}$$ is the error term.…”

“…Over the past decades, developing and emerging countries have continuously experienced rapid growth and structural transformation of agri‐value chains. Many past studies have attributed this transformation to increased consumer demand for high‐value and processed food products, quality, safety, and convenience, which is typically linked to rising incomes and urbanization (Awafo & Owusu, 2022; Bellemare et al, 2022; Kafle et al, 2022; Reardon et al, 2009).…”