Determinants of income from banana farming in Kisunku Village Kyotera District

Abstract

This study examined the socio-economic, institutional, and farm-level determinants of income from banana farming among smallholder households in Kisunku Village, Kyotera District, Uganda. Despite banana (matooke) being the dominant crop and the principal source of food and cash income in the area, farmers continue to earn persistently low incomes, and limited empirical evidence exists on the specific factors driving this outcome at the village level. The study therefore sought to describe the socio-economic characteristics of banana farmers and to assess the effects of farm size, access to agricultural inputs, farming experience, credit access, market access, education, extension services, labour availability, banana variety choice, and production constraints on annual household income from banana farming. Primary data were collected from 70 banana-farming households using a structured questionnaire administered through face-to-face interviews, following a multistage sampling procedure. After data cleaning, 69 complete observations were retained for regression analysis. Descriptive statistics, bivariate correlation and comparison-of-means tests, and multiple linear regression (estimated in Python using the Statsmodels, Pandas, and SciPy libraries) were used to analyse the data, with heteroskedasticity-robust standard errors applied following diagnostic testing for multicollinearity, heteroskedasticity, and normality of residuals. The results showed that respondents were predominantly middle-aged, experienced smallholders operating an average of 2.23 acres, with limited access to agricultural credit (27.1%) despite relatively wide extension coverage (61.4%). The regression model explained approximately 60.6 percent of the variation in annual banana income (R\u00b2 = 0.606; adjusted R\u00b2 = 0.485; F(16,52) = 5.00, p < 0.001). Farming experience and market access emerged as the only statistically significant determinants of income, while farm size, input use, credit access, education, extension services, labour availability, and variety choice were not significant after controlling for other factors. Weak farmer cooperatives, poor market access, land fragmentation, declining soil fertility, pests and diseases, limited access to credit, and climate variability were identified as the major constraints affecting income. The study concludes that strengthening farmers’ practical production experience and improving rural market access offer the greatest potential for raising household incomes from banana farming in Kisunku Village. It recommends investment in rural market infrastructure, farmer training and mentorship programmes, strengthened farmer cooperatives, and agricultural credit products tailored to the needs of smallholder banana farmers.