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Socio-Economic Determinants of Smallholder Farmers' Adoption of Improved Sweet Potato: Case Study of Wedza Community in Zimbabwe

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  • Mudombi, Shakespear

Abstract

The smallholder farming sector plays an important role in national agricultural production. However this sector faces a number of constraints which include: vulnerability to climatic variations; inadequate access to farming inputs; inappropriate technologies; limited access to markets, amongst others. In the face of food insecurity amongst smallholder farming households, there has been conceited efforts by various stakeholders to introduce new technologies that will help improve their food security situation. A number of organisations come up to help smallholder farmers through provision of the improved sweet potato planting material. These institutions used the biotechnology technique of tissue culture to eliminate viral diseases in the planting material. The planting material was then multiplied in nurseries for availability to farmers. This study analysed the adoption of this improved sweet potato in the smallholder farming sector. Issues analysed are: the characterisation of households according human; physical and social assets; influence of socio-economic factors and farmers’ perception of the agronomic attributes on use intensities and adoption probability of the technology, and the various scenarios under which the incorporation of improved sweet potato would result in household welfare gains and losses. The study found that there were significant differences in terms of human; physical and social capital between adopting and non-adopting households with adopters having more capital than non-adopters. Socio-economic factors that were found to significantly discriminate between adopting and non-adopting households were: sex and age of household head. Socio-economic factors that influenced use intensities and adoption probabilities are: farmer training (for use intensity only); participation in on-farm trials; irrigation use; farmer to farmer input exchange and extension. All the significant factors on use intensity and adoption probability had positive relationships with adoption. Technology attributes that were found to significantly influence adoption were: drought resistance; maturation; storage performance and multiplication & retention capacity. The incorporation of improved sweet potato into the smallholder farming system resulted in welfare gains for the households under the various scenarios considered. The welfare gains resulted from sweet potato’s contribution to food security and income. Relaxing the land; labour; transport-marketing and storage constraints increased household welfare. The recommendations are that there should be greater interaction between funders; government; researchers; extension and farmers so as to ensure sustainability of such interventions. Deliberate targeting of technologies to resource constrained households is essential if the goal of improving food security in the smallholder sector is to be achieved. Efforts by various stakeholders should also focus on removing perceived gender-biases in technological innovations in order to ensure wider adoption of such technologies.

Suggested Citation

  • Mudombi, Shakespear, 2007. "Socio-Economic Determinants of Smallholder Farmers' Adoption of Improved Sweet Potato: Case Study of Wedza Community in Zimbabwe," Research Theses 243468, Collaborative Masters Program in Agricultural and Applied Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:cmpart:243468
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.243468
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    References listed on IDEAS

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