*3.2. Maize Production and Failures*

The Ejura-Sekyedumase Municipality is an important maize growing area in Ghana [11]. Production is the main source of income for farmers. In total, 53% of the farmers reported that over 60% of their income is from the sale of maize grains (Table 1). The plowing and harvesting of maize fields are often done mechanically using tractors, while sowing and weed clearance is done manually and using weedicide. Maize is grown two times a year, during the major and minor growing seasons. Major season maize is usually planted in April, during the onset of the major rainy season, and harvested in August. The minor season maize is cultivated from late August to early September when the minor season rain is expected to start, and harvested in December. The interviews revealed that the farmers use diverse agro-chemicals for controlling weeds and pests, and for replenishing soil nutrients. The most common agro-chemicals applied by the farmers included weedicides ("Condemn", Samphosate, "Round-up", "Adwumawura", "King Kong", Atrazine), insecticides (Lambda Super 2.5, "Diband and Samprifos", Lindane), and mineral fertilizers (Urea, NPK15-15-15, NPK 23-10-5, and ammonia).

Interviews with the farmers and the key informants confirmed their observations of declined maize yields in the last five years, and notably during the 2020 minor season. About 68% of the farmers reported that their maize yield during the 2020 minor growing season decreased between 40 and 70% compared to what they harvested in the previous years.

The observations of the respondents were validated by empirical data on maize production. Figure 2 shows that the cultivated area of maize slightly decreased in 2019 and 2020 compared with 2018. The maize grain yield sharply increased from 2017, and the highest was recorded in 2018. Figure 2 further shows that, compared with 2018, maize yield dropped by about 14% and 8% in 2019 and 2020, respectively, suggesting a slow recovery in 2020, which to a large extent corroborates the narrative of yield decline. However, given the lack of seasonal maize yield data, it was not possible to isolate the minor season yield to match the qualitative reports of the respondents.


**Table 1.** Demographic characteristics of respondents.
