This paper examined farmers’ perceptions and preferences for improved varietal traits in the Wenchi and Offinso North Municipalities of Ghana. Data from 306 randomly selected tomato farmers were analyzed using perception indices, Kendall’s Coefficient of concordance and the Poisson regression model. The results show that tomato farmers are willing to adopt an improved variety with long shelf life, good fruit quality and large fruit size. The study further indicates that tomato farmers lack requisite skills in pest and disease management. The number of varietal attributes preferred by farmers was positively influenced by sex of farmer, education, experience in tomato cultivation, household size, access to credit, FBO membership, extension contacts farm size and off-farm income. These factors and attributes need to be carefully considered by breeders and policy makers in the development of an improved tomato variety to enhance its uptake. The major constraints identified in tomato production include limited access to capital followed by low commodity prices coupled with low demand with the least constraint being access to tractors for land preparation. The potential of adoption of improved tomato varieties in Ghana will be augmented through paragenetic measures towards addressing these constraints.

This research was intended to provide a method to improve competitiveness, based on the integration of basic municipalities by assessing changes in their population and local industry Municipalities were integrated based on the addressing system 市(Shi), 町(Chome), 村(Village) of Japan. As a result, an actual increase of the population could not be seen in the new municipalities formed by the integration of the basic municipalities. It is also found that the shipping volumes, number of companies, and the number of people employed by local industry, attracted by such municipalities, has steadily decreased. However, even though the proportion of industrysharing in the local municipalities is not significant, it was found that the number of tourists has increased. Therefore, it is concluded that the strengthening of the connectivity between local industry and the tourism industry can be one of the principal methods to strengthen the competitiveness of these municipalities. In addition, it has been found that scientific research from a variety of perspectives and verification of data related to the effectiveness of integration of local municipalities is necessary.