Farmers' perceptions and willingness to adopt maize-based intercropping in Kapchorwa district, Uganda

Abstract

Intercropping is a long-standing crop practice that forms part of smallholder cropping systems in Uganda. Despite knowing some intercrops, farmers in Kapchorwa still widely practice maize monocropping. To popularize maize-based intercropping, the HealthyLAND project introduced intercropping practices of maize-beans, maize-pumpkin, maize-African eggplants, maize-grain amaranth, and maize-lablab through farmer field demonstrations. However, farmers’ perceptions on these intercrops, willingness to adopt the practices, and their potential net benefits to the farmer are not known. This study aimed to determine farmers' perceptions of the different demonstrated practices and establish factors that influence farmers' willingness to adopt them. Random and purposive sampling methods were used to collect data on 108 smallholder farmers to determine perceptions of both farmer field demonstration participants and non-participants using a semi-structured questionnaire. The data was analyzed using STATA and SPSS. Results showed that both demonstration participants and non-participants had similar positive perceptions such as increased maize yield with an intercrop of maize-beans and negative perception of the reduced yield of companion crops. Results of the multivariate probit model showed revealed that participation in the farmer field demonstrations significantly influenced willingness to adopt maize-pumpkin, maize-African eggplants, and maize-lablab. Age of a farmer, farming experience, number of years of schooling, and number of farming fields accessed by a farmer significantly influenced willingness to adopt maize-grain amaranth. The results of the marginal analysis revealed that in the lower altitude area, except maize-lablab, all the other intercropping practices that were demonstrated showed higher economic benefits compared to maize mono-crop. This study, therefore, recommends that extension workers need to demonstrate different intercrops to farmers. Also, farmers’ willingness to adopt less common intercrops can be significantly improved through participating in field demonstrations. Further research can be carried out to establish the actual adoption of the different intercropping practices.