Agricultural extension and its effects on farm productivity and income: insight from Northern Ghana

Table 1 Descriptive statistics of the sampled farm households

Description of variables	Participants		Non-participants
Description of variables	Mean	SE	Mean	SE
*Dependent variables*
Maize productivity/yield (kg/ha)	1811.27	179.49	1511.24	122.87
Maize farm income (total sales in GH¢ per ha)	1177.33^c	116.67	982.3	79.86
Total household income (GH¢)	13,710.85^a	183.43	8239.94	1158.60
Total household income per capita (GH¢)	2222.01^a	313.36	788.04	90.04
*Explanatory variables*
Socio-economic characteristics
Gender of the household head (dummy; 1 = male, 0 otherwise)	0.69^a	–	0.46	–
Age of the household head (years)	40.65	11.11	41.69	10.44
Household size (count)	6.17^a	0.545	10.45	5.86
Number of years in formal education (years)	6.35	0.58	5.73	0.59
Number of years in crop farming	19.89	11.57	20.72	12.06
Plot characteristics
Number of maize plots (count)	1.25^b	0.66	1.47	0.611
Farm size (farmland allocated to maize cultivation in ha)	2.14^a	2.03	1.3	0.75
Institutional factors
Access to credit	0.28	–	0.07	–
Farmer-based organization	0.66		0.73
Distance to local market (kilometres)	14.13^c	10.22	16.08	12.12
Distance to regional market (kilometres)	24.32	11.34	23.23	14.56

ISSN: 2048-7010