Small-scale urban vegetable farmers’ knowledge and perceptions about agricultural insurance in the Greater Accra Region, Ghana

This paper seeks to contribute towards bridging the knowledge gap and bringing more clarity to the phenomenon of crop insurance within the Ghanaian context. Specifically, it seeks to measure the perceptions of small-scale urban vegetable farmers in terms of their appreciation, willingness to pay and motivation to enter into crop insurance arrangements.

Manteaw, S. A.; Folitse, B. Y.; Mingle, N. A.; Mahama, S.

2021

English

This paper seeks to contribute towards bridging the knowledge gap and bringing more clarity to the phenomenon of crop insurance within the Ghanaian context. Specifically, it seeks to measure the perceptions of small-scale urban vegetable farmers in terms of their appreciation, willingness to pay and motivation to enter into crop insurance arrangements. Data were obtained using structured questionnaires administered to 150 urban vegetable farmers in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana, complemented with in-depth interview sessions with senior officials of three insurance companies operating in Accra. Vegetable farmers’ appreciation of crop insurance was determined with the use of a Likert scale. The study showed a high level of farmer appreciation of insurance. It emerged that diseases, the financial risk that comes from market uncertainties and theft were the sources of motivation for insurance. Majority of the farmers were willing to pay for insurance premium. While gender and marital status were found to be insignificant at 0.05 significance level and had no positive effect on the probability of farmers’ desire to partake in vegetable crop insurance policy, farmers’ level of education was significant at 0.05 significance level. The paper makes a strong case for sustained farmer education to create the needed awareness that will expand the knowledge-base of the farmers regarding crop insurance.