Abstract
In Tanzania, the increasing population coupled with climate change amplifies issues of food insecurity and negatively impacts the livelihoods of smallholder farmer households. To address these issues a range of water conservation techniques (WCTs) have been useful. However, the adoption of these WCTs in Tanzania has been limited due to many reasons. With the objective to better understand and identify the factors that significantly influence the adoption of WCTs in Tanzania, the study uses survey data from 701 smallholder farmer households and a bivariate logistic regression, to provide, for the first time, a comprehensive model for the adoption of WCTs in Tanzania that includes a range of individual, household, socio-economic, and farmer perception related variables (factors). The evaluation shows that 120 farmers (17.12%) adopted WCTs and finds the farmer perceptions of rainfall instability, household wealth, and food security to be crucial. The results suggest that policy interventions should encourage conservation behavior (especially when the rainfall is perceived to be uncertain), emphasize the economic and food security-related benefits of adopting WCTs, include strategies that make adoption of WCTs attractive to female-led households, attempt to reach greater number of farmers via social networks and provide better access to public funds for farmers.
Highlights
Owing to the topography and the changing climate, Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) continues to face issues of food and water insecurity
Similar to [21,24], we argue that adoption studies that include farmer perceptions, along with other individual, household, and socio-economic conditions are useful for understanding the adoption of water conservation techniques (WCTs) and may guide management and policy interventions better than one-dimensional adoption models
The results show that all, individual, household, socio-economic, and farmer perceptions factors are important to explain the adoption process of WCTs in the study region
Summary
Owing to the topography and the changing climate, Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) continues to face issues of food and water insecurity. Chronic food insecurity, including the threat of famine, as well as malnourishment remains endemic. The most vulnerable are the small-holder farmers in rural areas where agrarian dependency and sensitivity to climate fluctuations are greater [1]. A predominantly agrarian economy, is one of the fastest-growing economies in SSA, but economic growth has not benefited all areas of the country [2]. Agricultural production accounts for nearly half of Tanzania’s GDP [3], but rural areas, in particular, remain underdeveloped, productivity in agriculture lags and resources to improve the agricultural sector are needed [3,4,5]. Agriculture in Tanzania is predominantly rain-fed and directly dependent on annual rainy seasons [3]
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