| dc.description.abstract | Maize,
Zea mays L.)L.), an important food and cash crop for a greater percentage of Ugandan
households, is still experiencing low output levels. These results have left abundant poverty and
hunger locked up within most of farmers at alarming levels. The emergence of better performing
maize crop seed varieties through research has coincided with t hese re current living enigmas as
part of the solution to the problem of low harvest. Despite of all the improved maize varieties
released, their uptake and sustained use has unfortunately been minimal and unconvincing among
most average farmers in the cou ntry. Socio economic factors have above others been widely
noticed has been the intimately important.
The study done in Mukongoro sub county Kumi district`s results of the analysis provided logical
descriptions of the demographic characteristics of the fa rmers, used to assess the socio economic
factors influencing adoption of improved maize varieties, while weighing the feasibility of the
suggested measures that aim at improving adoption of these seeds and to come up with
recommendations for vital stakehol ders in research, extension and policy making.
The findings suggest that up to 30 % of the farmers had never ever engaged in the use of an
improved maize variety, furthermore among the adopters, DK, Longe V, and Longe VII, were the
most dominantly sown va rieties in that order respectively. Also the results show that among the
demographic characteristics of farmers; basing on sex, males dominant in maize growing with over
two thirds of the respondent; with respect to marital status, most of them are marrie d (66 %); while
basing on level of education, a large proportion of them have undergone some level of school
learning with only 18 % uneducated; the study further confirms the importance of farming as a
major source of income to most households with an inc redible 82 % largely dependent on farming
as the main source of livelihood.
Finally, the study recommends; first, the government to strictly control maize prices against
fluctuations, improve on the level of education via extension and check on seed quali ty of new
varieties to reduce disbelief among farmers by passing and implementing strict and tough laws and
penalties for the perpetrators. | en_US |
