Smallholder Coffee Productivity as Affected by Socioeconomic Factors and Technology Adoption

Abstract

Despite the increase in area under coffee in Kenya in the last decade, productivity has been on the decline. Numerous production technologies have been developed through on-station research but there has been limited on-farm research to assess the impact of these technologies at the farm level. On the other hand, smallholder farmers are endowed differently and this would positively or negatively affect the adoption of recommended technologies and hence coffee productivity. This study was carried out to evaluate the effects of socioeconomic factors and technology adoption on smallholder coffee productivity at the farm level. The study employed stratified random sampling where 376 farmers were randomly sampled from six cooperative societies which had been preselected using probability proportional to the size sampling technique. The effects of socioeconomic factors and technology adoption on coffee productivity were analyzed using the stochastic Cobb-Douglas production function. The study revealed that off-farm income, access to credit, type of land tenure, and land size had significant positive effects on coffee productivity. Therefore, coffee farmers should be encouraged to diversify their income sources and to embrace credit financing, as the government reviews land use policies to avail adequate agricultural land. The study further revealed that the adoption of recommended application rates of manure, fungicides, and pesticides had significant positive effects on coffee productivity. The adoption of these technologies should therefore be enhanced among small-scale farmers to improve coffee productivity at the farm level.

Factors influencing adoption of improved cultivars of macadamia (Macadamia spp.) among small-scale farmers in Embu County, Kenya

“…The most shocking observation was that 93.2% of the farmers had no access to credit, while 78.9% had no linkage to market information. This was a big departure from the findings of Wambua et al (2021) that 70.5% of coffee farmers in the same area were accessing credit facilities. The low credit access reported by the macadamia farmers may be attributed to lack of organized groups among the farmers.…”

“…Therefore, the majority (57.3%) of the farmers were growing the traditional varieties while 42.7% had adopted the improved varieties. In a similar study conducted in the same area by Wambua et al (2021), the majority (62.7%) of the farmers were still growing traditional coffee varieties. The low adoption of the improved varieties was mainly attributed to small land sizes and lack of adequate extension services.…”

“…Embu North Sub-County lies between latitudes of 0 o 8' and 0 o 35' South and longitudes 37 o 19' and 37 o 42' East, with an elevation ranging from 1500 m to 1800 m above sea level. The annual mean temperature ranges from 12°C to 30°C with the coldest month being July and the hottest being September (Wambua, Gichimu and Ndirangu, 2021). The area receives an annual rainfall of between 1120 and 1495 mm per annum which falls in a bimodal pattern (Wambua et al, 2021).…”

“…The annual mean temperature ranges from 12°C to 30°C with the coldest month being July and the hottest being September (Wambua, Gichimu and Ndirangu, 2021). The area receives an annual rainfall of between 1120 and 1495 mm per annum which falls in a bimodal pattern (Wambua et al, 2021). The soils are humid andosols which are well drained, deep dark brown in colour, clay loam to clay with acid humic top soils.…”

“…Farm size is an important resource that largely dictates the decision to adopt new technologies since there is more room for experimentation with minimal food security risk (Mwangi, Ndirangu and Isaboke, 2020;Okeyo et al, 2020b). Wambua et al (2021) reported that coffee farmers in the same area with bigger land sizes were more motivated to adopt new farming technologies. Similarly, it was observed that farmers with relatively bigger land sizes were more willing to adopt eucalyptus woodlots (Derbe & Agitew, 2018).…”