Unknotting typologies in smallholder farmers investing in seed potato production in South-Western Uganda

Figures & data

Figure 1. Conceptual model of variables defining smallholder seed potato producer typologies. Source: Adapted from Bidogeza et al. (2009), Chipfupa and Wale (2018), Goswami et al. (2014) and Imogen et al. (2009).

Table 1. Descriptive statistics of the variables used in principal component analysis and typology development.

Variable	Description and Units	Mean	Standard-deviation
Household characteristics
Sex of household head	=1 if man, 0 otherwise	0.53	–
Age of household head	Number of years	43	31
Level of education	Number of years of schooling completed	6.25	4.07
Structural variables
Land ownership	=1 ownership, 0 if otherwise	0.93	0.26
Land size	Size of land accessed for all farming (acres)	2.93	2.73
Seed type used	Seed type used = 1 if a farmer used basic seed, 0 otherwise	1.07	0.79
Land under seed	Amount of land demarcated for seed potato in acres	1.30	1.21
Psychological variables
Self-confidence ‘Strong belief in oneself that he or she has all that is required to produce seed	I am confident that I can produce seed potato better than others.	4.39	1.09
	I have specific skills and experience to produce seed potato.	4.41	1.14
	I have knowledge about the expected costs and benefits of producing seed potato.	3.96	0.83
	I have the power to influence the outcomes of my investment in seed potato production.	3.23	1.36
Social influence ‘Influence from friends and peers and experts in regard to seed production	I produce seed potato because of my friends and family members.	3.22	1.31
	I value others’ views about seed potato production.	4.09	0.65
	I make personal decisions and evaluations about my seed potato production activities.	2.11	1.23
	I seek the advice of experts such as extension officers and KaRZADI staff regarding anything about seed production.	4.35	0.61
Loss aversion ‘Fear to make losses and take on risks in production’	I am so afraid of making losses in producing seed potato.	3.33	0.42
	I am much more concerned about expected losses than gains from seed potato production.	3.01	0.56
	I fear taking on more risks when it comes to producing seed potato.	3.21	1.88
	I compute the expected costs and returns of producing before I engage in production.	4.10	1.9
	I study the market and investment environment for seed production carefully before producing to avoid making losses.	4.52	1.41
Optimism ‘Positivity about the future of seed production’	When it comes to producing seed potato, I cannot give up easily.	4.28	0.68
	I can produce even when I incur risks and losses.	3.73	1.02
	I am sure the future of producing seed potato is bright.	4.23	0.87
	I am very positive that seed potato production business will keep improving.	4.18	1.01
	I see seed potato production as a better source of income.	4.87	0.78
Resilience ‘Ability to produce amidst risks and uncertainties’	I can easily adapt to shocks like floods.	2.96	0.88
	I have the skills to manage production risks.	2.43	0.47
	I have the resources to recover from risks and uncertainties related to seed potato production	3.01	0.98
	I have the ability to produce seed potato amidst risks and uncertainties.	2.15	1.36
	I cannot give up producing seed potato.	3.07	1.53
	I do not mind incurring losses in the short run so as to offset profit in the long run.	1.44	1.12
Institutional variables
Belonging to a seed producer group	=1 membership to a seed producer group, 0 if otherwise	0.88	0.33
Acquired credit	=1 Accessed credit, 0 if otherwise	0.66	0.48
Amount of credit acquired in 2018	Amount of credit received in UGX	696,524 (180 USDs)	525,880 136 USDs
Received training in 2018	=1 if trained, 0 otherwise	0.85	0.37
Economic variables
Average investment costs	Money invested in producing seeds in both planting seasons of 2018 in UGX.	2.131.903 (551 USDs)	1.804.734 466USDs
Yield amount	Amount of seed produced in Kgs in 2018	3144.58	2959.95
TLU Large	Number of cattle and donkeys	2.7	1.22
TLU- small	Number of goats and sheep	4.	2.3
TLU Poultry	Number of chickens, ducks, turkeys, etc.	8.0	3.2

Note 1 United States dollar (USD) = 3869 Ugandan Shillings (UGX) (Bank of Uganda USD exchange rate, April 2019).

Table 2. Factor loading of principal components for 23 study variables, Eigen values and per cent cumulative variance explained.

Variable	PC 1 ‘Economic’	PC 2 ‘Psychological’	PC 3 ‘Demographic’	PC 4 ‘Institutional’	PC 5 Institutional	PC 6 ‘Small Ruminants’	PC 7 ‘Large Ruminants’	PC 8 ‘Overconfidence’	PC 9 ‘Social’
Age	−0.2	−0.1	0.5	0.2	−0.1	−0.1	0.2	0.0	0.3
Sex	0.2	−0.1	−0.1	−0.3	0.1	0.0	−0.1	0.1	0.6
Marital status	−0.1	0.1	0.5	0.1	−0.1	0.2	0.0	0.1	0.0
Average income	0.2	0.0	−0.3	0.0	−0.1	−0.1	0.1	0.3	0.2
Land under seed	0.2	0.0	0.2	−0.3	−0.2	−0.1	0.1	0.2	0.2
Received training access	0.2	0.0	0.2	0.4	0.0	−0.3	0.0	0.2	0.1
Investment cost	0.3	0.0	−0.2	0.0	−0.3	−0.1	−0.2	0.2	−0.3
Costs of production	0.4	0.0	0.1	0.0	0.0	0.1	−0.1	−0.2	−0.1
Seed amount planted	0.4	0.0	0.1	0.0	−0.1	0.2	0.1	−0.2	0.0
Seed harvested	0.4	0.0	0.1	0.0	−0.1	0.3	0.1	0.3	0.0
Credit access	0.2	−0.1	0.0	0.2	0.4	−0.2	0.1	0.2	−0.1
Seed type used	0.0	0.1	−0.3	0.4	0.2	0.0	−0.1	−0.2	−0.1
Belonging to a seed producer group	0.2	−0.1	0.1	0.2	0.4	−0.2	0.1	0.0	0.0
TLU_small	0.0	0.1	0.1	0.0	0.5	0.4	−0.1	−0.2	0.2
TLU_large	0.0	0.0	−0.3	0.1	−0.1	0.2	0.6	0.0	0.1
TLU_poultry	0.0	0.1	−0.2	0.3	0.1	0.3	−0.1	0.3	0.2
Social influence	0.1	0.4	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.2
Self-confidence	0.0	0.2	0.1	0.0	0.0	0.3	−0.4	0.4	−0.2
optimism	0.1	0.5	0.1	−0.2	0.1	−0.1	0.1	0.1	0.0
Loss aversion	0.0	0.5	0.1	−0.2	0.0	−0.1	0.1	−0.1	−0.1
Resilience	0.0	0.5	−0.1	0.1	0.0	0.0	0.1	−0.2	0.1
Own land	0.0	−0.1	0.1	−0.1	0.3	0.3	0.5	0.3	−0.4
Amount of credit acquired	−0.1	0.1	0.0	0.4	−0.3	0.3	0.1	0.1	0.1
Eigenvalues	3.26	2.67	1.70	1.45	1.30	1.21	1.14	1.06	0.97
Cumulative explained variance	0.14	0.26	1.33	0.39	0.45	0.50	0.55	0.60	0.64

Figure 2. Dendrogram for typology identification.

Table 3. Distribution of household, economic and structural characteristics by typology and P-value of one-way analysis of variance.

Variable	Typology I ‘Middle-aged female seed multipliers of moderate psychological capital and low investment levell’ n = 48	Typology 2 ‘Old-aged seed recyclers of high psychological capital but with the lowest investment level’ n = 43	Typology 3 ‘Young male seed recyclers of moderate psychological capital but with high investment level n = 47	Typology 4 ‘Young male seed multipliers of high psychological capital and the highest investment level’ n = 75
		Means		P-Value
Household characteristics
Gender	0.4	0.5	0.6	0.6	0.186
Age	49	63	35	33	0.000
Educational level	5	5	8	9	0.002
Household size	7	5	4	5	0.221
Economic characteristics
Average income	600,000	200,000	800,000	1,200,000	0.001
Costs of inputs	742,496				0.008
investment costs	1,940,017 (501 USD)	1,153,109 (298USD)	2,190,767 (566USD)	2,737,814 (708 USD)	0.000
Yield amount	3682	1869	3568	3868	0.001
TLU- Large	1	4	3	6	0.121
TLU- small	9	6	8	12	0.009
TLU Poultry	10	5	13	20	0.04
Yield amount	3682	1869	2448	3868	0.01
Structural characteristics
Land ownership	0.47	0.88	0.51	0.92	0.35
Land size	2.94	3.22	2.40	3.89	0.472
Land demarcated for seed potato	1.48	0.81	1.38	2.35	0.0925
Seed amount planted	695	402	599	846.	0.002
Seed type used	1.2	0.03	0.14	1.2	0.035
Seed producer type	0.31	0.11	0.19	0.4	0.001

Table 4. Distribution of institutional and psychological characteristics by type and P-value of one-way analysis of variance.

	Typology 1 ‘Middle-aged female seed multipliers of moderate psychological capital and low investment level’ n = 48	Typology 2 ‘Old-aged seed recyclers of high psychological capital but with the lowest investment level’ n = 43	Typology 3 ‘Young male seed recyclers with moderate psychological capital and high investmnet level’ n = 47	Typology 4 ‘Young male seed multipliers of high psychological capital and the highest investment level’ n = 75
Variable		Means			P-value
Institutional factors
Belonging to a seed producer group Amount of credit accessed	1 886,667 (229USD)	0.8 196,279 (51USD)	0.7 0.0	0.9 1,127,467 (291USD)	0.001 0.045
Received training	0.6	0.7	0.7	0.6	0.797
Number of times trained	5	3	2	3	0.000
Registration	0.52	0.28	0.63	0.76	0.000
Distance to seed source	10	18.5	10	11	0.009
Distance to input shop	8.4	4	7	9	0.597
Distance to the market	5	5	8	9	0.122
Psychological factors
Overconfidence	2.6	3.72	3.01	4.85	0.017
Social influence	3.3	3.6	2.4	3.4	0.41
Loss aversion	3.56	3.38	2.53	2.65	0.008
Optimism	2.3	2.76	2.84	2.88	0.053
Resilience	2.61	3.8	3.0	4.3	0.081

Figure 3. Seed potato producer typologies distribution by district. Source: Study data (2019).

Table 5. Seed production constraints per typology and implications for improvement.

	% case response per typology type
Seed production constraints	Type 1: Middle-aged female seed multipliers of moderate psychological capital and low investment level (23%)	Type 2: ‘Old-aged seed recyclers of high psychological capital but with the lowest investment level (20%)	Type 3: ‘Young male seed recyclers of moderate psychological capital but with high investment level’ (22%)	Type 4: ‘Young male seed multipliers of high psychological capital and the highest investment level’ (35%)
Limited access to land	93.0	76.4	84.7	87.5
Insufficient capital and credit	89.6	83.7	91.3	85.1
Limited access to market and marketing information	92.0	90.7	89.1	85.1
Pests and diseases	52.0	81.4	89.0	40.0
Lack of storage facilities	75.0	81.5	73.9	81.6
Climate change effects (flooding and drought)	83.5	76.5	84.3	79.7
Fake and counterfeit agro-inputs	75.3	80.0	62.0	55.0
Limited access to good-quality seed potato	43.0	34.5	56.5	43.25
Limited knowledge of quality seed production practices and innovations	52.0	65.12	52.0	56.76
Implications for targeting interventions for seed potato production improvement	Type 1: ‘Middle aged female multipliers’ (23%)	Type 2: Old aged seed recyclers’ (20%)	Type 3: ‘Young male seed recyclers’ (22%)	Type 4: ‘Young male seed multipliers’ (35%)
Promote increased access to market and market information	XXX	X	X	XX
Support household access to land and promote crop intensification	XXX	X	X	XX
Promote household training on low-input technologies and increase extension visits	X	XX	XX	X
Support access to production credit	XX	X	XXX	XX
Promote increased access to quality seed source	X	XX	XXX	X
Support the construction of low-cost stores	XX	X X	X	XXX
Promote stabilization of seed potato price	XX	XXX	XX	XXX

Note: X – low priority intervention, XX – moderate priority intervention, XXX – high priority intervention.

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