International Journal of Agricultural Sciences

ISSN 2167-0447

International Journal of Agricultural Sciences ISSN: 2167-0447Vol. 12 (2), pp. 001-009, February, 2022. © International Scholars Journals

Full Length Research Paper

Interrupted Time Series Analysis on maize production in Ghana: The case of Planting for Food and Jobs program

Ernest Zamanah1 and Suleman Nasiru2

12Department of Statistics, School of Mathematical Sciences, C.K.Tedam University of Technology and Applied Sciences, P. O.Box 24, Navrongo, Ghana, West Africa.

Accepted 04 January, 2022 

Abstract

The Planting for Food and Jobs program was a government policy implemented in 2017 with the aim of improving the production of major food crops such as maize in Ghana.  In this paper, we used Interrupted Time Series Analysis to investigate whether there was any structural change in the mean level of Ghana’s maize production. To this end, we developed an interrupted time series model with a set of pulse functions to evaluate any possible structural change in the production of maize in Ghana. The datawe used for the analysis in this paper were secondary data representing Ghana’s annual maize production from 1960 to 2020. Estimation results of the interrupted time series model revealed that significant improvements in maize production were realized in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020. Overall, the study was concluded by indicating that the significant improvements in the maize production could be attributed to the Planting for Food and Jobs program as well as other possible underlying factors.

Keywords: Interrupted Time Series Analysis, pulse functions, extension services.