An Analysis on the Effect of Farmer’s Health on Production Performance in the Kumba Municipality of Cameroon

Abstract

Advances in productivity analysis show the importance of human capital in driving productivity and reducing inefficiency in production. Based on this premise, we profile and analyze the effect of farmer’s health on production performance in the Kumba municipality of the Southwest region of Cameroon. We sought to assess the share of poor health conditions on farm performance. Problems like malnutrition, poor values and habits amongst others, usually lead to farmer’s poor health. We tested this hypothesis with the use of robust statistics and the Ordinary Least square technique to capture the relationship between farmers output, poor health and other important determinants. The study found the health conditions of farmers to be a critical and positive determinant of farm performance. The amount of labour hours is also observed to positively influence farm production. Other significant variables are farm size and amount of pesticide used. We therefore recommend to policy, increased investment in the health sector to urgently and increasingly address the health conditions of farmers in a bid to improve their health conditions while targeting food production in the long run.