MOBILE MONEY, INCOME AND WELFARE OF SMALLHOLDER FARMERS IN SELECTED DISTRICTS IN GHANA

Mobile money offers promising ways of making financial services available to rural smallholder farmers but little is known in the Ghanaian context. The study adopts a quasi-experimental design to analyse the impact of mobile money on income and welfare of 460 smallholder farmers from Abura-Asebu-Kwamankese, Adansi South, and Shama districts in Ghana. The study utilises the propensity matching scores (PSM) and the inverse probability weighting (IPW) estimation techniques to analyse the impact of mobile money adoption among these smallholder farmers. The study finds that accessibility of mobile money significantly drives mobile money adoption. Also, the study finds that, mobile money adoption has significant positive impact on both income and welfare among smallholder farmers in the study areas. Based on the results, the study recommends that mobile money network operators should encourage people to become agents in the rural farming communities of Ghana. Again, education on mobile money should form integral part of the extension services provided to smallholder farmers.