10 Berchie Asiedu, Amos Asase, Seidu Iddrisu et al.
Figure 3. System of management at Tropo Farms Ltd (Source: Personal
communication Tropo Farms Ltd).
Challenges
Data on the key challenges were collected in two ways, challenges
presented to farmers for ranking and those peculiar to farmers. Figures 4 and 5
present abandoned farmers (AF) and operational farmers (OF) rankings of the
challenges developed from literature and presented to them for scoring on a 4-
point scale. Overall mean rankings from abandoned and operational farmers’
were 3.9 and 4.0 respectively, for high cost of feed. This was the highest mean
rankings recorded, putting high cost of feed as a very important constraint.
Lack of access to fund was the second with mean rankings 3.8 for AF and 3.6
for OF. Mean score for inadequate fingerlings supply was 2.7 and 2.8 for
abandoned and operational farmers, respectively. To determine whether farm
abandonment may be due to poor management, unsatisfactory management
was presented to the AF group for ranking. Mean ranking for unsatisfactory
management was 2.9. The lowest mean rankings observed were 2.3 for water
quality management by OF and 2.6 for lack of extension and training by AF.