Assessing factors responsible for participation in rice development projects: A case study of PRiDe small-holder rice farmers in Katerera sub-county, Rubirizi District

Abstract

The study analyzed factors that influence the participation in rice development projects in Western Uganda in Katerera. Specifically, the study addressed three objectives; to (𝑖) identify the socioeconomic factors influencing participation in rice development projects; (𝑖𝑖) assess the influence of the market availability and access on the intensity for market participation and to (𝑖𝑖𝑖) examine the institutional factors (such as credit access and membership to Rice Development Project (PriDe)) that influence the intensity of market participation among smallholder rice farmers in Western Uganda. Various logistic regressions on the intensity of market participation were predicted and these took different dimensions on age of the farmer, education level, period spent in rice production (in years), credit access, market availability, farm income, experience in rice growing. A cross-sectional survey design was adopted because the study intended to pick only some representative sample elements of the cross-section of the population one at a time without revisiting the place for more data collection from the field using a structured questionnaire so as to analyze data using Univariate, Bivariate and Logistic regression. Estimated coefficients of the Logistic regression (χ2=83.17, df= 4, N= 80, p < 0.05) revealed that the explanatory variables – ‘education level, ‘age of farmer’, ‘credit services’, ‘market availability’, ‘farm income’ and ‘years spent in rice growing’ positively and significantly influenced the farmers’ decision to participate in the market with rice sales and thus significantly impact on the decision of the smallholder farmers to participate in rice development projects. However, there’s need for construction of infrastructure alone such as construction of roads that may result into easy transportation from in Katerera Sub-County to the market.