Global climate change and decreases in available land are significant challenges humans currently face. Alternative management approaches for sugarcane fields have great potential to help mitigate these problems in Kenya. Intercropping as a crop diversification strategy is a crucial coping mechanism for agriculture's income, production, and marketing risks. The main purpose of this study was to analyze the determinants of sugarcane-soybean intercropping among sugarcane farmers to inform policymakers about policy adjustment. The study used primary data collected from 246 households using a structured questionnaire. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and a logistic regression model. Results showed that 63% of the respondents had adopted sugarcane monocropping compared to only 37 % who had adopted sugarcane-soybean intercropping. Specifically, the study found that sugarcane farming experience (p =<0.10), production acreage (p =<0.10), land ownership (p =<0.10), and divorced as marital status ((p =<0.05) had negative and significant effects on sugarcane – soybean intercropping, while farmers' age (p =<0.10) and widowed as a marital status (p =<0.01) depicted a positive and significant association with sugarcane – soybean intercropping.  From the findings, lack of credit for farm operations and the high cost of farm inputs also emerged as barriers to the adoption of sugarcane intercropping systems. Based on the results, the study suggests the need for government to promote the development of agricultural policy that supports the shift from non-diversification to crop diversification through developing guaranteed access to inputs and subsidies on farming input resources with priority given to smallholder farmers.

The low agricultural productivity reported in both cash and food crops across Uganda is attributed to inadequate skills on modern agriculture. Consequently, many studies have recommended that farmers should be trained on modern agriculture through extension service provision. Strikingly, majority of the farmers do not have access to extension services, a situation which contributes to low returns on investment in agriculture. The study determined the number of farmers with access to extension services, compared them against their counterparts without access to extension services and finally determined the factors affecting access to agricultural extension services using primary data collected from 200 farmers in western Uganda. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, t-test, Chi – square test and Binary logistic regression model. From the results, 42.5% of the farmers had access to extension services, those who had access to extension services reported higher crop yields than their counterparts. The significant factors affecting access to agricultural extension services included age (P<0.05), gender (P<0.05), education (P<0.01), distance to the extension areas (P<0.01), membership to agricultural associations (P<0.10) and access to credit (P<0.05). The policy recommendations include; supporting farmers through quick loans at low interest rates, strengthening and increasing the number of adult literacy programs, increasing the number of extension agents and encouraging farmers to join agricultural associations.

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Sweet potato is one of the important staple food for majority of Ugandans. As such, it is depended on by many households. Reportedly, sweet potatoes production is low especially in Western Uganda. This may have been attributed to resource misallocation leading to some levels of efficiency or inefficiency. However, the current level of efficiency or inefficiency and its determinants in sweet potatoes production is unknown. As such, this study determined technical efficiency and its determinants among sweet potatoes farmers in western Uganda. Data were collected from 160 households using multistage and random sampling techniques. After data cleaning, 151 questionnaires were considered for the study. Data envelopment analysis was used to determine technical efficiency while Tobit regression model was used to analyse the determinants technical efficiency. The results showed that the mean technical efficiency stood at 55%. Accordingly, household size, farm location, group membership and use of pesticides had a positive and statistically significant effect on technical efficiency while farm size and input prices had an inverse and statistically significant association with technical efficiency. To increase on sweet potatoes yields, farmers should be encouraged to form various groups where they could share production ideas, use pesticides for effective control of weeds and government should subsidise farm inputs to improve on affordability and timely acquisition.

This study aimed at determining the drivers of access to credit among smallholder farmers in Uganda. Using a cross-sectional survey, data were collected from 374 farmers in Jinja district, followed by data analysis using descriptive statistics and Binary logistic regression model. Additionally, we used Chi-square and t-test to compare farmers with and without access to credit. The results showed that 62.83% of the farmers had access to credit. Additionally, farmers with access to credit were generally better off than those without access to credit. Having a mobile phone (p<0.01), group membership (p<0.01), access to extension (p<0.05), farm size (p<0.01) and distance to the market (p<0.05) had a positive and significant effect on credit access while non-farm income (p<0.05) showed an inverse relationship with credit access. To increase credit access among the smallholder farmers, farmers should be encouraged to purchase mobile phones and join groups where they would disseminate information on the various source of agricultural credit. Extension workers should also make effects of reaching all the farmers and training them on ways of accessing agricultural credit