Access to social capital and smallholder agricultural practices: the case of smallholder farmers in North-Western Ghana

Abstract

Social capital is considered one of the pertinent drivers of inclusive development for rural farmers. However, in scientific discourses, little is known about the determinants and types of social capital available to smallholder farmers and the consequential livelihood implications in Sub Saharan Africa. This paper employed a cross-sectional design involving a questionnaire survey to collect quantitative data from 284 smallholder farmers in the Upper West Region of Ghana. The findings show that smallholder farmers in the region have access to bonding, bridging and linking social capital. Family members, farmer-based organisations, and access to extension services were the dominant bonding, bridging, and linking social capitals respectively at the disposal of smallholder farmers. Socioeconomic and demographic factors such as age, gender, educational attainment, marital status, and religious affiliation were found to have statistically significant associations (p-value < 0.05) with smallholder farmers’ access to social capital. Our findings indicate that access to social capital is a catalyst for sustainable rural development as it is linked directly and indirectly to the attainment of all other assets by smallholder farmers. Thus, efforts towards eliminating hunger and poverty—SDG 2 and 1 by the government of Ghana must prioritize facilitating smallholder farmers’ access to social capital.

Keywords

• Social capital
• smallholder agriculture
• farmer-based organisations
• rural livelihoods
• north-western Ghana
• Manuel Tejada, Universidad de Sevilla, Spain