Factors affecting rice growing in Uganda

Abstract

Rice is the staple food for more than half of the population and its importance cannot be ignored. Rice crop have important contribution in the food security. The main aim of the study was to analyze the factors (Age, Gender, Marital status, Level of education, Quantity of seeds, Size of the land cultivated and Region) affecting rice growing in Uganda and its possible solution to enhance the production of rice growers. The current study was conducted in different regions (Central, Eastern, Northern and Western region) of the country. This study used data obtained from UBOS Annual Agricultural Survey 2020. The survey aimed at obtaining demographic information and level of knowledge about rice growing in Uganda. The dataset under (crop roaster) has a total of 38,087 observations, rice has a count of 201 after eliminating duplicates which is the sample size for this study and STATA 15.0 software was used in data analysis. Multiple linear regression was used to investigate the socio-economic and demographic factors affecting rice growing in Uganda. The research was based on 95% level of confidence and hypothesized that if the p-values of the study variables are less than 0.05 significant level. The age of the household, gender, marital status, level of education and region had no significant effect on quantity of rice harvested. The result of the analysis revealed that they were two significant variables that is to say quantity of seeds applied to the crop and the size of the land cultivated under rice growing, were significantly (p-value = 0.006 and p-value = 0.000) respectively. Furthermore, the result of the study also revealed that, an increase in the rice farm size by 1 hectare would lead to an increase in rice productivity by 76% and Furthermore, the result of the study also revealed that, an increase in the quantity of seeds by 1 unit would lead to an increase in rice productivity by 11.5%. The study recommended that the government should provide more rice seeds to farmers such that they can improve on rice production in Uganda. The government should encourage famers to carryout rice growing on large plantations. This can improve on quantity of rice harvested by farmers. The government should increase small farm sizes either through the acquisition of more lands by the smallholder farmers or governmental intervention whereby such lands could be acquired through government efforts and made available to the farmers at a fee.