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