Constraints Facing Cocoa-Based Agricultural Knowledge and Information System in Ghana: Perception of Cocoa Farmers in the Eastern Region of Ghana (#61939)

The study ranked and analysed the constraints facing the Cocoa-based Agricultural Knowledge and Information System (AKIS) in Ghana from the perspectives of cocoa farmers in the Eastern Region. Kendall’s Coefficient of Concordance (W) was used to test the rank of factors that influence the efficient functioning of the cocoa-based AKIS. The study revealed that there was a 100% agreement among the various rankings that 22.7% of the coefficient of concordance is correct. Implying that, there is agreement among cocoa farmers concerning the factors/constraints that limit the efficient functioning of the cocoa-based AKIS. Inadequate interaction with researchers and extension agents had a mean rank of 4.57, representing the highest ranking order with a few cocoa licensed buying companies (LBC’s) providing cocoa-based information ranking the least among the fifteen constraints. It indicates that, it does not seem to be generally true that the existing AKIS institutions or stakeholders have reneged on their duties but that they have not reached their full potential in their quest of information dissemination to farmers. The study therefore advocates an effective and participatory synergy among all the stakeholders in the cocoa AKIS chain to ensure that all the bottlenecks that exist in the information, knowledge and technology dissemination are reduce to the barest minimum for higher productivity and overall efficiency of the system