Assessment of rice threshing technology characteristics for enhanced rice sector development in Senegal

Understanding the technology characteristics desirable to farmers to increase the adoption of improved technologies remains a high-priority research issue in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The study aimed to quantify farmers’ demand and assessment of the characteristics of rice threshing technologies to enhance the adoption of innovations in Senegal. A multistage sampling technique was used to collect primary data from 318 rice farmers in the Senegal River Valley. Three indexes (demand, supply and attainment) of technology characteristics were estimated to assess farmers’ perceptions of the characteristics of three threshing techniques (traditional, ASI thresher and combine harvester-thresher). The results showed that of the eleven selected characteristics, time savings (0.95), labour savings (0.94) and grain quality (0.93) were farmers’ key demand. The ASI thresher and combine harvester-thresher met farmers’ needs well in terms of the attributes of grain quality and production capacity. However, users of the traditional technique reported low levels of perceived usefulness, and users of the combine harvester-thresher reported low levels of ease of use. Women labour usefulness is a trade-off for advancement in threshing technologies in pursuance of rice sector improvement, implying that efforts towards developing gender-friendly threshers are required. The variables estimated in this study offer policy considerations for development of the rice production system in Senegal. The originality of this paper is its use of a combination of take-the-best theory, the technology acceptance model and an indexing approach to reveal specific characteristics for the development of best-fit mechanization equipment, mainly improved threshers for rice sector development in SSA.