The impact of climate change coping and adaptation strategies on livestock farmers’ technical efficiency: the case of rural Ghana

• Published in: Environmental science and pollution research international Vol. 28; no. 12; pp. 14386 - 14400
• Main Authors: Ankrah Twumasi, Martinson, Jiang, Yuansheng
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01.03.2021; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Adaptation; Adaptation, Psychological; Agriculture; Animals; Aquatic Pollution; Atmospheric Protection/Air Quality Control/Air Pollution; Climate Change; Data envelopment analysis; Developed countries; Developing countries; Earth and Environmental Science; Ecotoxicology; Efficiency; Environment; Environmental Chemistry; Environmental Health; Environmental impact; Environmental science; Farmers; Female; females; Ghana; Goats; Humans; issues and policy; LDCs; Livestock; Livestock farming; Regression analysis; Regression models; Research Article; Scale efficiency; surveys; Waste Water Technology; Water Management; Water Pollution Control; Ghana; Climate change; Ghana; Efficiency; Goat farmers; Data envelopment analysis
• ISSN: 0944-1344; 1614-7499; 1614-7499
• DOI: 10.1007/s11356-020-11525-1

Compared with developed nations, developing countries are more vulnerable to climate change and variability. In this study, a coping and adaptation strategies (CCCAs) index, data envelopment analysis (DEA), and fractional regression model (FRM) are used to explore the impact of farmers’ CCCAs on technical efficiency (TE) among goat farmers in Ghana. Using survey data collected from goat farmers in the northern part of Ghana, the results reveal the following: first, most of the farmers were inefficient in their production. Thus, out of the 124 goat farmers, only 13 (10.5%), 3 (2.4%), and 4 (3.2%) were efficient under variable return to scale (VRS), constant returns to scale (CRS), and scale efficiency (SE), respectively. Second, regarding a quantitative relationship, CCCAs can help increase farmer’ efficiency. Again CCCAs impact on female farmers’ TE was profound than their counterparts. Finally, CCCAs have heterogeneous impacts on goat farmers in different groups. Our findings provide policy implications to improve CCCAs and enhance the goat farmers’ TE.