Factors Influencing the Household Adoption of Multiple Agricultural Technologies in East Africa

Abstract

This paper analyses factors that influence the adoption of multiple agricultural technology. That is: improved beans variety, biofortified maize variety, grafted fruit trees, and garden vegetable techniques in East Africa. The endogenous switching regression (ESR) framework was modeled where the farmer's choice of alternative technologies was estimated using a multinomial logit selection (MNLS) model accounting for unobserved heterogeneity. There were four major joint multiple technologies that were adopted by households in East Africa for the production of the crop that are; improved beans variety, grafted fruit trees, biofortified maize variety, and use of garden vegetables techniques. The results show that the only factor that affects the probability of adoption of the four joint multiple agricultural technology combinations apart from education level was the regional diffusion of technology in comparison to base category. A household located in the East Africa region increases the chances of adopting the four joint technology innovation by TC1 (21%), TC2 (31%), TC3 (30%), and TC4 (23%). The factors that were found to be positive and significantly influenced the adoption of a combination of three joint technologies were the education level of the household head, the general participation in community meetings, and barazas and diseases that cause problems. Given region there may be a variety of economic and political factors with different relevant agronomic characteristics that might be specific in adopting technologies. The results from the study generally conclude that theirs a potential subsistence-oriented factors that influence the adoption of multiple agricultural technologies through the link of the household’s own production and, therefore recommended that more households be encouraged and influenced to embrace this factors.