Joint Adoption of Safer Irrigation Technologies under Uncertainty: Evidence from Ghana

This paper examines joint adoption of safer irrigation technologies under uncertainty. The new irrigation technologies introduced in sub-Saharan Africa aim at ensuring safer vegetable production when untreated wastewater is used as irrigation water. The main hypothesis tested is that profit and health-related uncertainties influence adoption of safer irrigation technologies. The study employed a cross-sectional data on urban and periurban vegetable farmers in Kumasi of Ghana and examines theoretically and empirically, these possible technology adoption uncertainties, and other relevant factors which influence farmers’ adoption decisions. The empirical results indicate that apart from household and farm characteristics, profit and health-related uncertainties influence adoption of irrigation technologies for safer vegetable production.