Bananas and Food Security - Bioversity International

Afrique / Africa : A. Mensah-Bonsu et al.
Table 5. Summary of estimated returns to treatments tested on-farm at Nyinahin
and Gyedu (1995-1997).
Benefit in Cedis a per 0.1 ha
Site Measureb Treatment 1 Treatment 2 Treatment 3 Treatment 4
Nyinahin NPV 117,017 268,827 -2,688 280,789
BCR 1.42 1.80 1.00 1.73
Gyedu NPV 269,965 248,634 31,731 316,521
BCR 2.27 1.96 1.10 2.00
Farm average NPV 193,491 258,730 14,520 298,655
BCR 1.79 1.87 1.04 1.85
a The prevailing lending rate (interest rate) for loans in the agricultural sector is between 40-45%.
The peak interest rate of 45% was used as the compound factor to calculate the NPV and BCR.
b NPV: Net present value.
BCR: Benefit cost ratio.
strategy to be considered for adoption by farmers, when use of untreated material and
traditional weeding practices (treatment 1) gave a higher BCR of 1.79.
Estimation of compensation
The increase in return to a farmer to compensate for the costs of learning and changing
to new production techniques were estimated for two situations: firstly, where the farmer
adopted the treated planting material but maintained his usual crop management
practices for planting and weeding (Table 6); secondly, where the farmer incorporated
treated planting material and new management practices in his/her production
(Table 7).
From Table 6, it can be seen that farmers who used treated suckers but maintained
traditional management practices in Nyinahin were compensated with a present value of
profit of 1.52 million Cedis/ha and a net benefit of 3.71 Cedis for every 1.00 Cedis spent.
In contrast, at Gyedu it was not worthwhile for farmers to adopt the use of treated
suckers with traditional weeding practices (loss of 213,300 Cedis/ha compared with
farmers material, farmers management). This result can be explained by the fact that
there was little difference in yields for treatments 1 and 2 at Gyedu, due to relatively
good management practices, but the use of treated suckers incurred extra costs for
treatment 2. For the two sites combined, there was a compensation of 652,400 Cedis/ha
and a net incremental benefit of 2.28 Cedis for every 1.00 Cedis spent, to a farmer using
treated suckers while maintaining normal weeding practices, indicating that this
strategy was worth adopting.
At Nyinahin, the compensation to a farmer using treated suckers and improved
management practices with intercropping, was approximately 1.64 million Cedis/ha,
compared with 465,570 Cedis/ha in Gyedu. On average, there was a compensation of
1.1 million Cedis/ha with a BCR of 2.08.
Comparing the estimated compensation for the two different strategies for the
combined sites, the adoption of treated material and improved weeding is most
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