Farmers’ perceptions, constraints and preferences for improved Bambara groundnut varieties in Ghana

This paper examined farmers' perceptions, constraints and preferences for improved Bambara groundnut varieties among smallholders in Ghana. Using data from 113 randomly selected farmers from the Nkoranza and Wenchi Municipalities, A 5-point Likert was used to examine farmers' perception on improved Bambara groundnut varieties. The Kendall's Coefficient of concordance was used to rank key constraints in Bambara groundnut production. Factors influencing farmers' preference for major categories of attributes of Bambara groundnut was examined using the multinomial logit model. The results revealed that, farmers strongly agree that Bambara groundnut is disease tolerant, able grow on poor soils, can grow with minimal fertilizer, fixes nitrogen, high in nutrients such as carbohydrates, protein, calcium, potassium and fibre. Conversely, farmers disagreed to the crop having high tolerance to waterlogging and sufficient amounts of fat. The most important constraint to Bambara groundnut production include inadequate capital and lack of access to improved varieties. Furthermore, the key attributes farmers desired in an improved Bambara variety were, ease to harvest mechanically, drought tolerance, disease tolerance, tolerance to waterlogging, ability to fix nitrogen, high yields, early maturing and ease of cooking. The white and dark coloured beans were preferred. Factors influencing farmers' preference for seed colour, nutritional and agronomic attributes to plant orientation attributes of an improved Bambara variety were sex, education, years of Bambara cultivation, off-farm income, FBO membership and household size. Careful considerations needs to be given to these desired attributes and factors in the development of improved Bambara varieties for increased adoption and enhanced food security in Ghana.