Impact of improved maize varieties adoption on smallholder farmers’ marketed maize surplus in Lwakhakha town council, Namisindwa district

Abstract

Adoption of improved agricultural varieties in Africa is low. This situation is not different in Uganda. Though increasing yield is a priority, mere increase in production do not motivate farmers to adopt new varieties. When farmers are able to produce more and can sell in the output markets, they will have much more incentive to adopt the new varieties and be productive. This study, therefore, aims at evaluating the impact of adoption of improved maize varieties on farmers’ market participation in four parishes of Lwakhakha Town council, Namisindwa district of Uganda. The study utilized cross-sectional household level data collected by CIMMYT in 2012/2013 from 300 randomly selected sample households. Both descriptive and econometric methods have been used to analyze the data. The descriptive analyses results show the existence of significant mean and proportion difference between adopters and non-adopters in terms of age, education, family size, livestock ownership, land holding, distance to main market, accesses to output and input markets, access to extension services, and access to credit in favor of adopters. The results of the logistic model show that adoption of the improved maize varieties among households was found to be positively influenced by adult-literacy, family size, livestock wealth, access to output market and credit access for the new varieties. On the other hand, farmer associations, distance to main markets and fertilizer credit influenced adoption negatively. Moreover, the results of the ATE model show a robust and positive increase in marketed maize grain per household which ranges from around 442kg in the case of kernel-based matching at bandwidth of 0.05 to 483kg in the case of radius matching at a radius of 0.03 at p<0.01. The results from this study revealed that the significant impact of adoption on improving the farmers’ participation to output markets. Therefore, it is recommended to promote adoption of the improved varieties as it is essential for inducing farmers’ market participation that helps them in generating income and in improving their lives.