Abstract:
This study was set to investigate social influence on continuation of adopted agricultural
technologies in Ukwega and Mtitu wards of Kilolo District, Iringa Region. Specifically the
study aimed at identifying innovations currently used after HIMA project, determining
whether social influence was responsible for continued use of agricultural technologies and
assessing socio-economic characteristics of household influencing adoption and continued
use of adopted agricultural technologies. A total of 120 respondents (84 males and 36
females) who were involved in HIMA project interventions were interviewed. Quantitative
data were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) whereby content
and structural functional analysis was used for qualitative data. The study revealed that
HIMA project interventions that were extended to farmers included terraces, agroforestry;
contour ploughing, crop rotation, use of improved seeds, multiple cropping system,
mulching and tree planting on woodlots and boundaries. The average number of trees
owned by households before HIMA has tremendously increased from 377 to 4155 after
HIMA which was more than ten times. The finding from binary logistic regression
revealed that of all the seven factors loaded into the model only three factors (farm size,
farming experience and number of farms owned by the household) were statistically
significant (p<0.05) in influencing continued use of adopted agricultural technologies.
Farm size had highest Wald statistics of 6.286 implying that had big impact on influencing
continuation of adopted technologies. This was followed by number of farms owned
(p=0.015) with Wald statistics of 5.912 and farming experience (p=0.021) with Wald
statistics of 5.337. Social influence had no effects towards influencing continuation of
adopted agricultural technologies (p<0.05) and had very small Wald statistics of 0.150. The
study thus concluded that the continuation of adopted agricultural technologies was not
because of social influence but was because of other factors as pointed out above.
