An understanding of the nexus of organic fertilizer use decisions that smallholder farmers take is essential to designing relevant policy to support adoption in sub-Saharan Africa. In this paper, we applied exploratory factor analysis (EFA) on observed farmer decisions to identify a set of common management approaches that farmers in the northeastern part of Ghana adopt in using organic fertilizer. After identification, seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) analysis was applied to relate each approach to farmer characteristics that influence uptake decisions. The EFA identified four approaches, labeled as Augmentary Compost Use Approach, Urban Human Waste Organic Fertilizer Approach, Integrated Livestock Manure Approach and Mineral Fertilizer Cost Constraint Organic Approach. Each of the first three approaches involves a set of strategic farmer decisions which could be supported to increase organic fertilizer use. The SUR analysis showed that the uptake of each approach is affected by different subsets of farmer characteristics. However, participation in organic fertilizer management training positively influences the adoption of all four approaches. Thus, we recommend free training of smallholder farmers as a core element of any policy package to support organic fertilizer adoption.

中文翻译：

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小农户使用有机肥：加纳北部的管理方法类型

了解小农户所采取的有机肥料使用决策之间的关系对于设计相关政策以支持撒哈拉以南非洲地区的采用至关重要。在本文中，我们对观察到的农民决策应用探索性因素分析 (EFA)，以确定加纳东北部农民在使用有机肥时采用的一套常见管理方法。识别后，应用看似不相关的回归 (SUR) 分析将每种方法与影响吸收决策的农民特征联系起来。EFA 确定了四种方法，标记为增加堆肥使用方法、城市人类废物有机肥方法、综合牲畜粪便方法和矿物肥料成本限制有机方法。前三种方法中的每一种都涉及一系列可以支持增加有机肥料使用的战略性农民决策。SUR 分析表明，每种方法的采用受不同的农民特征子集的影响。然而，参与有机肥管理培训会对所有四种方法的采用产生积极影响。因此，我们建议对小农进行免费培训，将其作为支持有机肥采用的任何一揽子政策的核心要素。