Factors influencing adoption of improved agricultural technologies in Tanzania: a case of maize smallholder farmers

Agricultural sector is the mainstay of Tanzanian economy. It has a significant contribution to the growth and development of the country’s economy. A tremendous number of farmers in Tanzania are small scale farmers residing in rural areas while cultivating less than 10 ha of land. Despite the fact that, poverty alleviation is directly linked to agricultural activities, most of smallholder farmers consume a large part of their produced commodities (subsistence farming). Besides, the use of improved agricultural technologies and participation in output market is very low to these communities. Thus, the study intended to investigate factors influencing adoption of improved agricultural technologies while integrating the role of smallholder farmers’ market orientation and market participation in adoption decisions. To achieve study’s objectives, this study employed logit model to estimate factors influencing adoption of improved agricultural technologies while market orientation and participation index was computed to estimate household farmers’ level of commercialization. A total of 1146 sampled households was filtered from the 2014/2015 Tanzania National Panel Survey data (TZNP) collected by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) for the 2014/2015 agricultural year, whereby improved maize seeds and in-organic fertilizer were the improved agricultural technologies considered in this study.
Descriptive results revealed that, the adoption rate of the maize growing households was 47.29% and 18.32% for improved maize seeds and in-organic fertilizer respectively. Computation of commercialization indexes indicates that, only 14.30% of the sampled household were market oriented as a result, 38.30% maize produced were sold in the output market, signifying the lower level of commercialization. Logit results revealed that, non-farm income, household size, advice about seeds and advice about fertilizer were found to significantly influence all two technologies.
Therefore, these results suggest a need for an intervention from the government, and all stakeholders involved in agricultural development, specifically to these significant variables. The government should put up an appropriate system in which smallholders can obtain means of income outside agricultural activities. Besides, the study proposes a need for a proficient and effective agricultural products marketing System through proper integration and linkage between the technology development and the market aspects.