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This paper aimed to examine the impacts of agricultural services on welfare of rural farmers in Ghana.

Using data from 1431 rural maize farmers, we employ multinomial endogenous switching regression and multivalued inverse probability weighted regression adjustment to assess the impacts.

Results show that 19.8%, 9.7% and 3.42% of farmers adopted solely irrigation, extension and mechanization, respectively. Furthermore, utilizing a range of agricultural services significantly improves maize yields, gross income and per capita food consumption.

This study recommends strategies that target the adoption of combinations of agricultural services to enhance rural farmers’ welfare in Ghana and other developing countries.

While agricultural services are claimed to improve agricultural production and peasants’ welfare, their impacts are not studied exhaustively. This paper contributes by providing empirical evidence of the impacts of agricultural services on farmers’ welfare.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-11-2022-0745.

This paper examined the factors influencing the participation of rice processors in short supply chains and the participation impact on the amount of rice processed, per capita expenditure of household and value of sales.

The Seemingly Unrelated Regression and Doubly Robust Augmented Inverse Probability Weighting Model (AIPW) were used to analyse the determinants of short supply chain participation and the impact of short supply.

From the results, the mean value of rice processed was GH₵18385 (US$ 3,069.28), with the minimum value being GH₵ 25 (US$ 4.17) and the maximum GH₵ 67200 (US$ 1,1218.70) per annum. Processed rice aroma and grade characteristics positively influence the value of processed rice sold via short supply chains as well as the expertise rate of the processor, Farmer-Based Organisation membership, and marketing information availability. Women rice processors' per capita expenditure, total sales value and the value of processed rice was positively influenced by the short supply chain participation.

Even though the sample size was appropriate, a larger sample size could further support the study's finding since a limited geographical area with predominant domestic rice processors was studied. Again, future studies should consider behavioural theories, such as the Theory of Planned Behaviour, amongst others, in understanding the reasons for the choices of short supply chains compared to other sales outlets.

Although there is a growing body of literature on rice, most of the studies focussed on the marketing outlet of rice producers, rice processing, constraints and opportunities faced by rice farmers and processors and an out-grower scheme involving rice processors amongst rice producers with none of these on the choice of short supply chains amongst women processors. Also, amongst all the studies on rice producers, none applied a theory; however, the Women in Development (WID) Theory was used to analyse the impact of the short supply chain on the impact on household per capita expenditure (poverty), the value of sales and amount of rice processed, a modest theoretical contribution of the paper to literature.