CASH SALE OF PEANUTS AMONG SMALL FARMERSIN THE NORTHERN REGION OF GHANA

Abstract

Small farmers grow peanuts to feed their families and to sell a portion of the crop to raise cashto pay, among others, their children school fees. The dual nature of peanut crop has been recognized,but not rigorously examined. The amount of sold peanuts depends on a number of factors and varies bylocation. This paper specifies an empirical relationship modeling the volume of sold peanuts using thesurvey data collected among small farmers in northern Ghana. The truncated nature of the dependentvariable, the number of sold bags of peanuts, led to the application of the Tobit model. Among variablessignificantly influencing the number of sold bags are respondent and farm characteristics, prices, andgeneral features of the environment in which a farmer sells peanuts, including distance to markets andcredit access. Farmers choose to store peanuts rather than selling them at harvest because prices tend toincrease, although by a small amount.

Keywords

• storage
• survey
• Tobit model
• price