Socio-economic factors influencing use of improved technologies by smallholder paddy farmers in Kilombero District, Tanzania
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Date
2017
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Abstract
The study on which the paper is based was carried out in Kilombero district, Morogoro Region. Specifically it aimed at; identifying smallholder paddy farmers use of improved technologies (i.e. improved seeds and fertilizers) in their production; determining socio-economic factors influencing their use or none-use of the above, and identifying inputs access challenges faced by the farmers. To address the above a cross–sectional research design was adopted whereby data were collected only once. Simple random sampling was used to obtain 120 respondents, 40 from each of the selected villages. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire. Collected primary data was analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS), whereby descriptive statistics such as frequencies and percentages were determined. In addition, a binary logistic regression model was used to determine association of some key socio-economic factors and farmers use of improved technologies. Generally, results from the logistic regression show that, availability of extension officers, involvement in other income generating activities, access to credit, household size, annual income, education level and farm size were significantly associated with the use of improved seeds and fertilizers. Results further show that, major technology use challenges faced by farmers were high inputs prices, poor availability of inputs, long distance to agro–input shops, lack of adequate input use knowledge and low quality inputs. Therefore, the paper recommends that, the Ministry of Agriculture, Local Government and other stakeholders work on ways to increase smallholder farmers’ access and use of improved technologies hence improvement of their paddy productivity.
Key Words: Smallholder farmers, paddy, improved seeds, fertilizer
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American Journal of Agricultural Research 2017 Vol. 2(4)
Keywords
Smallholder Paddy Farmers, Kilombero District, Improved seeds and fertilizers