The Government of Ghana (GoG) since 2007 has been providing subsidized agricultural machines to individual farmers and private enterprises established as specialized Agricultural Mechanization Services Enterprise Centers (AMSECs) to offer tractor-hire services to small-scale farmers across the...

Little has been written in recent literature regarding the role of mechanization in agricultural transformation in Africa. Government-led mechanization schemes in the 1970s and 1980s proved unsustainable after structural adjustment policies removed government support. However, demand for...

Since 2007, the government of Ghana has been providing subsidized agricultural machines to private enterprises established as Agricultural Mechanization Services Enterprise Centers (AMSEC) to scale up tractor-hire services to smallholder farmers. Although farmer's demand for mechanization has...

This paper assesses the sustainability of the current supply network for mechanization, given government policy. Stylized models of mechanization supply are developed based on experience in Bangladesh, China, and India during similar stages of agricultural transformation. Ghana’s supply...

Even though the intention of the government is to promote private sector-led mechanization, findings suggest that the AMSEC model is unlikely to be a profitable business model attractive to private investors even with the current level of subsidy. The low tractor utilization rate as a result of...

Influential studies in the 1980s and early 1990s drew on the Boserup–Ruthenberg theories of farming systems evolution to argue that African countries were not yet ready for widespread agricultural mechanization. Through applying the theories of farming systems evolution and of induced...