Adaptation of climate smart technologies and impact on vanilla productivity among farmers in Wakiso district.
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to assess the effect of adopting selected climate smart
technologies on vanilla farmers’ productivity and income in Wakiso district and the specific
objectives were ; 1) to assess the level and intensity of climate smart technology adoption
among vanilla farmers in Wakiso district, 2) to assess the effect of climate smart technology
adoption on productivity of vanilla farmers in Wakiso district, 3) to identify the constraints
and opportunities faced by vanilla farmers with regards to widening the adoption of climate
smart technologies. The study collected data from a sample size of 50 vanilla farmers. Probit,
Tobit model and Ordinary least squares regression (OLS) were used to analyze the data.
Results from the Probit analysis indicated that gender, education level (primary and
graduate), land size (more than 10 acres) and the monthly earnings of farmers were
significantly associated with the level of climate smart technology adoption among vanilla
farmers in Wakiso district whereas age and household size were not significant.
The results from the Tobit analysis also indicated that; gender, education level, land size and
monthly earnings of farmers were significantly associated with the intensity of climate smart
technology adoption among vanilla farmers in Wakiso district.
The incomes of vanilla famers are higher than those of non-vanilla farmers.
The Effect of climate smart technology adoption on productivity of vanilla farmers in Wakiso
district results indicated that the adoption of climate smart technologies has affected vanilla
productivity to a larger extent 60%. The results continued and indicated that climate smart
technologies have significantly increased household income, improved farmers welfare,
changed farmers lifestyle and have created employment for farm laborers. At the ANOVA
level, the P=0.028 meaning that climate smart technologies have significantly impacted on
the productivity of and income of vanilla farmers in Wakiso district. The Constraints and
opportunities faced by vanilla farmers are; constraints include, Limited investment capital,
Limited skills for adoption, Tools for implementation not available, Climate variability, Poor
markets, Pests and diseases, Lack of access to credit and Low seed quality and access;
opportunities were; availability of climate smart mechanization using robotics , availability of
Drones for climate smart vanilla farming system. The study recommended that; the
government through the ministry of agriculture should advise farmers for not only vanilla to
adopt climate smart technologies as the technologies have been found to have a significant
impact on farmers productivity