Adoption of NERICA Varieties and Their Associated Technologies by Smallholder Farmers in the Northern and Southern Regions of Sierra Leone

Subject Areas : Agricultural Extension

Philip Kamanda ^{1 *} , Edwin Momoh ^{2 *} , Mark Yila ³ , Masa Motaung ⁴

1 - Department of Agricultural Extension and Rural Sociology, School of Agriculture and Food Sciences, Njala University, Njala Campus, Private Mail Bag, Freetown 47235, Sierra Leone
2 - Ernest Bai Koroma University of Science and Technology, Sierra Leone
3 - Sierra Leone Agricultural Research Institute, Njala Agricultural Research Centre, Sierra Leone
4 - Department of Agricultural Extension and Rural Development, Faculty of Agribusiness, Education and Extension, Botswana University of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Botswana.

Received: 2022-01-19 Accepted : 2022-03-19 Published : 2022-03-29

Keywords: Kaiyamba Chiefdom, Magbema Chiefdom, NERICA associated technologies,

Abstract :

New Rice for Africa (NERICA) varieties and their associated technologies study was conducted in Sierra Leone. A purposive sampling followed by a multi-stage random sampling technique was employed to select 150 NERICA farmers from the two chiefdoms as the NERICA farmer sample frames were unknown. Quantitative data were collected with a structured questionnaire. With the aid of the Statistical Package for Social Science (IBM SPSS) version 25.0 software, socio-demographic characteristics were analysed using descriptive statistics and logistic regression to determine the socio-economic characteristics of farmers that influenced the adoption of NERICA varieties. The socio-demographic findings reveal that the bulk of the farmers (62.0%) was in their middle age, 90.0% were married, and 84.7% had no formal education. Nearly half of the farmers interviewed (49.0%) did not adopt any of the recommended production technologies, whilst 56.0% did not adopt any of the recommended post-harvest technologies. The R-square of 0.26 (P<0.0001) indicates that smallholder demographic and socioeconomic factors of farmers significantly influenced their ability to adopt the recommended NERICA varieties. The study, therefore suggests adult functional literacy programmes for the huge number of illiterate NERICA farmers and encourages them to adopt at least one of the recommended production and post-harvest technologies.

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