A study of factors affecting the adoption of Hybrid maize in Mwanga district
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Date
1998
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Publisher
Sokoine University of Agriculture
Abstract
Mwanga district is experiencing continuous food shortages. In spite of the food problems, farmers continue to use traditional ways of food production and have not fully adopted the available modern agricultural technologies and practices. This study was designed to investigate factors influencing the adoption of hybrid maize in Mwanga district. The specific objectives of the study were: 1) To determine the level of adoption of hybrid maize in Mwanga district 2) To identify and describe factors that affect the adoption of hybrid maize in Mwanga district. 3) To determine the innovations,relationship between farmers, institutional and environmental characteristics on one hand and the adoption of hybrid maize 4) To recommend ways which can facilitate farmers to adopt hybrid maize in Mwanga district. The study was done in two villages involving 90 farmers and one extension worker. Forty five respondents from each village were selected randomly by using a table of random numbers. Data were collected using two types of structured questionnaires: one was for the farmers who grew maize and the other for the extension worker. Field observations were also used for data collection. These data were supplemented by documents and records from agricultural offices in Mwanga district and two village extension offices. Data were analyzed at Sokoine University of Agriculture using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). In the SPSS the sub-programmes "frequencies" and "crosstabs" we used to further analyze the data. Findings show that adoption was found to be significantly associated with gender, farm size, income, cost of inputs and complexity of growing hybrid maize. Moreover, adoption of hybrid maize was affected by other factors like the presence of coffee, inter-cropping system and the de-husking quality of hybrid maize. Recommendations drawn from this study include: (a)The price of inputs which is expensive need to be addressed. This can be solved by giving farmers subsidies and credits for them to buy farm inputs. (b)Farmers should be encouraged to buy fresh supplies of hybrid maize seed every season. (c)Women should be involved in the decision making process that involve growing of hybrid maize. (d)Farmers should look for alternative arable areas to cultivate such as the lowlands of Mwanga district to offset food shortages. (e)Farmers should be encouraged to use other alternative ways of improving soil fertility such as using composit manure and increase the use of farm yard manure from cattle kraals. (f)To reduce the problem of drought, farmers should been encouraged to adopt modern agricultural practices such as agro forestry and use field water retention techniques.
Description
Dissertation
Keywords
Hybrid maize, Weeding, Maize seed, Agricultutural development