The outputs of national and international soils research have not been widely adopted amongst smallholder fanners in sub-Saharan Africa despite increasing population pressure. The research presented in this thesis set out to understand the reasons for low uptake of research outputs in the forest and transition zones of southern Ghana where livelihoods are threatened by shortened bush fallow rotations, and to suggest ways of improving the process of technology development and dissemination.
Multiple factors influence the intensification of land management. The adoption of soils technologies is linked to the opportunity costs of land and labour, and fanners' broader livelil1ood strategies. Field based research was carried out at five field sites in Ghana to understand diversity in agricultural activities and access to resources amongst disaggregated groups of farmers. A Knowledge Based Systems approach was used to understand local knowledge of soil fertility management at the same field sites. This contributed to an understanding of farmer decision making and identified gaps in farmers' knowledge of soil
management. This research was complemented by a case study which considered the generation and transmission of knowledge about cover crops within the Brong Ahafo region, and provided insights into the institutional setting of agricultural research and dissemination.
General reasons for low adoption of existing techniques to improve soil fertility management in Ghana are understood and are recognized by the Ghanaian government. They include the low value cost ratio of inorganic fertiliser for staple food crops, lack of availability of organic material and limitations within public sector extension services, within the context of a relatively low level of investment in soils research.
This research found that a more fundamental constraint was the lack of systematic consideration of farmers' circumstances in the development of soils technologies. As a consequence of diversity in agricultural practices and access to resources in southern Ghana, technologies were only approp1iate to a limited number of crops and cropping patterns, and a limited number of farmers. The resource requirements for the majority of these technologies made them more appropriate to male farmers than female farmers. There was a lack of soils
technologies directly relevant to women farmers and other marginalised groups.
To address this issue an integrated framework and a set of tools was produced to focus research and dissemination on farmers with different circwnstances. Using the framework resource access amongst disaggregated groups of fanners is compared with information on the requirements for different potential technologies to be effective. This helps identify the criteria which technologies must satisfy to be adopted by different groups of farmers and can
be used to evaluate the potential impact of research outputs on farmers with different circumstances. Research resources can then be used effectively, and research outputs can be targeted at farmers with different circumstances. Where there are no technologies available for a particular group of farmers policy interventions may be appropriate.
The research also suggested that increasing farmer participation in the design of soil fertility management technologies in Ghana could contribute to the development of outputs appropriate to farmers with diverse sets of resource endowments. When used in conjunction with participatory technology development, the framework and tools could ensure that research outputs were widely relevant beyond the limited number of farmers that participate in on-farm research.