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Factors affecting the choice of conservation agriculture practices adopted by smallholder cotton farmers in Zimbabwe

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Relation http://oar.icrisat.org/7322/
http://www.academicjournals.org/journal/AJAR/article-abstract/9557ACF35842
 
Title Factors affecting the choice of conservation agriculture practices adopted by smallholder cotton farmers in Zimbabwe
 
Creator Mavunganidze, Z
Madakadze, J C
Mutenje, M J
Nyamangara, J
 
Subject Agriculture-Farming, Production, Technology, Economics
 
Description Conservation agriculture (CA) has been widely promoted in Zimbabwe as an antidote to non-viable agricultural production and continual land degradation. However, the adoption process had been quite slow and has not yet entered into the exponential uptake phase. This study aimed at identifying factors that influence the level of adoption of CA components. A cluster analysis from results of a household survey administered to 146 households in Muzvezve II, Kadoma District, Zimbabwe identified five dominant CA strategies (clusters) practiced by cotton growing farmers. A multinomial logit model revealed that the choice of CA components adopted is positively influenced by farmer’s age, formal education, access to extension services, labour, animal draught power availability and land size. The empirical results suggests that, to promote adoption of a complete package of CA policies that increase access to formal education and extension of CA should make strategic intervention through innovative methods of farmer to farmer extension services. Promotion of longer-term and effective CA can only be accomplished through targeting young educated farmers. It is of paramount importance as well to address the main factors leading to non-adoption and slow adoption such as labour and animal draught power availability.
 
Publisher Academic Publishers
 
Date 2013
 
Type Article
PeerReviewed
 
Format application/pdf
 
Language en
 
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Identifier http://oar.icrisat.org/7322/1/AJAR_8_17_1641-1649_2013.pdf
Mavunganidze, Z and Madakadze, J C and Mutenje, M J and Nyamangara, J (2013) Factors affecting the choice of conservation agriculture practices adopted by smallholder cotton farmers in Zimbabwe. African Journal of Agricultural Research, 8 (17). pp. 1641-1649. ISSN 1991-637X