Determinants of adoption of enhanced cashew production technologies among smallholder farmers in Mtwara region, Tanzania

Figures & data

Figure 1. A map of mtwara region showing the study districts.

Source: Field survey (2020)

Table 1. Classification of variables in the econometric exploration

Variable name	Description	Expected sign
Dependent variable on adoption equation (first stage)
Improved planting materials	Use of improved planting materials (1 = yes; 0 = no)
Recommended spacing	Used cashew recommended spacing (1 = yes; 0 = no)
Pesticides application	Applied pesticides (1 = yes; 0 = no)
Dependent variable on the adoption intensity (second stage)
Amount of improved cashew tree owned	Proportional of improved cashew trees owned over total cashew trees owned
Amount of pesticides used	Proportional of cashew trees sprayed with pesticides over total cashew trees owned
Amount of trees planted in spacing	Proportional of cashew trees planted in spacing over total cashew trees owned
Independent variables for adoption and intensity equations
Farmer and Household characteristics
Age	Cashew growers’ age (years)	±
Gender	Binary (1 = if male, 0 = if female)	+
Household size	Total number of household members	±
Years of Schooling	Number of years cashew growers spent in formal schools	+
Age of cashew trees	Age of cashew trees since planting (years)	±
Wealth or economic
Farm size	Total farm size with cashew tree (acre)	+
Off-farm income	Binary (1 = if earned off-farm returns, 0 = Otherwise)	+
Asset endowment	Household asset index	+
Institutional and access
Access to extension services	Number of times advised with extension officers	+
Group membership	Binary for 1 = if member to groups and 0 = if nonmember	+
Credit access	Binary for 1 = if received financial help, 0 = Otherwise	+
Geographical residence	Household is located in Tandahimba (1 = yes; 0 = no)	±

Table 2. Cashew growers interviewed in tandahimba and masasi districts (n = 760)

District	Ward	Village	Sample size
Masasi	Chikolopora	Chikolopora	28
		Namyomyo	23
	Chiwale	Chiwale	73
		Lilala	25
		Nanyindwa	25
	Lukuredi	Lukuredi A	50
		Mkoropola	25
		Mraushi	25
	Mnavila	Geuza	50
		Mnavila	25
		Nanyule	53
Tandahimba	Kitama	Kitama Mjini	52
		Mwenge B	25
		Namunda	24
	Malopokero	Malamba	24
		Malopokero	53
		Mbalala	24
	Mdimba	Mdimba	61
		Mtegu	24
		Tukulu	17
	Nanhyanga	Miule	29
		Nanhyanga B	25

Table 3. Sociodemographic profile of cashew growers in the study districts (n = 760)

Household variable	Categories	% Farmer by districts
		Masasi	Tandahimba	Total
Education	No formal education	12.19	21.79	16.99
	Primary	81.34	72.35	76.85
	Secondary	5.72	5.03	5.38
	Post-secondary	0.75	0.84	0.79
	Total	100	100	100
Marital status	Married	83.9	88	85.85
	Single	14.29	8	11.29
	Divorced	0.78	2.57	1.63
	Widow/widower	1.04	1.43	1.22
	Total	100	100	100
Main occupation	Farming	98.26	98.6	98.42
	Salaried employment	0.75	0.56	0.66
	Business	1	0.84	0.92
	Total	100	100	100
Gender	Female	16.92	16.2	16.58
	Male	83.08	83.8	83.42
	Total	100	100	100
Access to extension services	Yes	82.34	63.97	73.68
	No	17.66	36.03	26.32
	Total	100	100	100
Group membership	Yes	86.4	73.3	79.4
	No	13.6	26.7	20.6
	Total	100	100	100
Age group	<35 years	15.5	10.6	13.2
	35–60 years	65.6	64.0	64.8
	>60 years	19.0	25.4	22.0
	Total	100.0	100.0	100.0

Table 4. Cognizance and usage of improved cashew technologies in study districts

Type of technology	Tandahimba (%)		Masasi (%)		Overall (%)
	Awareness	Use	Awareness	Use	Awareness	Use
Cashew weeding	99	97	98	91	98	94
Cashew pruning	98	94	96	82	97	88
Pesticides	86	82	79	74	82	78
Improved planting materials	75	57	68	20	71	38
Weaver ants	78	42	62	18	70	30
Cashew Grafting skills	86	49	70	12	77	29
Recommended spacing	64	36	53	20	58	27
Overall per district (%)	84	65	75	45	79	58

Table 5. The espousal intensity of improved cashew technologies in the study districts

Variable	Tandahimba (n = 204)	Masasi (n = 80)	Total (n = 284)
Total area owned by farmers (acres)	2318	2019	4366
Total area under cashew production (acres)	2209	1811	4020
Total number of cashew trees owned	27,719	21,950	49,669
Number of cashew trees sprayed with pesticides	24,571	18,654	43,225
Number of trees under spacing	11,640	4192	15,832
Total area under improved cashew (acres)	1147	494	1641
% of area under improved cashew trees	52	27	41
% of cashew trees sprayed with pesticides	89	85	87
% of cashew trees under recommended spacing	42	19	32

Table 6. Main sources of cashew planting materials

	District
Main Sources of planting materials	Masasi (N = 394)		Tandahimba (N = 357)		Total (N = 751)
	Frequency	(%)	Frequency	(%)	Frequency	(%)
Family/friends/relative	330	84	210	59	540	72
Research Institutes	17	4	109	31	126	17
District councils	29	7	27	8	57	8
Cooperatives/Farmer groups	6	2	10	3	16	2
CBT	11	3	1	0	11	1

Table 7. Factors limiting farmers from using improved technologies

	Districts
Limiting factors	Masasi (N = 341)		Tandahimba (N = 255)		Total (N = 596)
	Frequency	%	Frequency	%	Frequency	%
Inadequate information	125	36.66	103	40.39	228	38.26
Unavailability of inputs	162	47.51	30	11.76	192	32.21
High prices	20	5.87	19	7.45	39	6.54
Not interested	23	6.74	36	14.12	59	9.9
No motivation	3	0.88	5	1.96	8	1.34
Difficult to learn	2	0.59	8	3.14	10	1.68
Difficult to use	2	0.59	25	9.8	27	4.53
Randomly spaced tree	4	1.17	29	11.37	33	5.54
Total	341	100	255	100	596	100

Table 8. The Probit estimates of the factors of espousal of improved cashew technologies

Variable	Improved planting materials	Pesticides	Recommended Spacing
Farmer and Household characteristics
Age	0.004	−0.003	0.311
Gender	0.046	0.572 (0.12)***	0.218
Household size	0.058 (0.019)**	−0.008	0.067 (0.102)**
Years of Schooling	0.053(0.018)***	0.077 (0.013)***	0.017
Age of cashew trees	−0.465 (−0.012)*	0.063	−0.723 (−0.195)**
Wealth or economic
Farm size/land	0.014	0.012 (0.002)*	−0.002
Off-farm income	0.132 (0.267)**	0.038	0.234
Asset endowment	0.014	0.088	−0.05
Institutional and access
Access to extension	1.158 (0.421)***	0.253	0.66 (0.529)***
Group membership	0.014 (0.164)*	0.035 (0.489)*	0.307
Access to credit	−0.239	0.442 (0.53)**	0.488 (0.244)*
Geographical residence	0.035 (0.322)*	0.211	0.325
Log likelihood	−33.578	217.326	324.521
Number of observation	760	760	658
LR χ^2 (12)	86.861***	35.829**	38.133***
Pseudo R^2	0.116	0.073	0.042

Note: The values in parenthesis are marginal effects and the asterisks ***, ** and * shows Significance levels at 1%, 5% and 10% respectively.

Table 9. Truncated estimated prompting the degree of espousal of cashew technologies

Variable	Amount of improved cashew tree owned	Amount of pesticides used	Amount of trees planted in spacing
Farmer and Household characteristics
Age	0.001	0.003	0.214
Gender	0.259	0.235	0.008
Household size	0.078	0.032	0.005
Years of Schooling	0.036	0.007 (0.083)**	0.645
Age of cashew trees	0.023	0.622	0.006
Economic parameter
Farm size/land	0.004	0.006 (0.058)*	0.678 (0.031)**
Off-farm income	0.067 (0.037)**	0.091	0.512
Asset endowment	0.143	−0.445	−0.078
Institutional and access parameters
Access to extension	0.781 (0.294)*	1.087	−7.217
Group membership	0.952 (0.186)***	0.452 (0.027)***	−6.727
Access to credit	−0.395	0.151 (0.198)**	0.4532 (0.002)***
Geographical residence	0.741	−0.029	0.012
Log likelihood	−732.422	124.885	197.394
Number of observation	638	693	519
LR χ^2 (12)	47.96**	36.956**	37.384**
Pseudo R^2	0.064	0.259	0.082
NOTE: The values in parenthesis are marginal effects and the asterisks***, ** and * shows Significance levels at 1%, 5% and 10% respectively.

Table A1. Improved cashew varieties released in Tanzania and Yield performance for the first 7 years

S/no	Variety name	Year of release	Distinguishing characteristics	Production trend without irrigation or fertilizer application (kg/tree/season)
				Year 4	Year 5	Year 6	Year 7
1	Cashew clone-AC1	2006	Pink flower in colour, Brown colour flushes and Nut shape like kidney which is orange in colour.	9	10	25	24
2	Cashew clone-AC4	2006	Red colour of flushes, orange apple colour, kidney like in shape	11	9	27	22
3	Cashew clone-AC4/17	2006	Pink flower in colour, apple colour is red	4	8	15	16
4	Cashew clone-AC10	2006	Pink flowers, colour flushes are brown, Apple colour is red	4	8	13	10
5	Cashew clone-AC10/129	2006	Pink colour flower, Brown colour flushes, apple yellow	9	19	20	28
6	Cashew clone-AC10/220	2006	Pink colour flower, red colour flushes, orange apple	-	-	-	-
7	Cashew clone-AC14	2006	Pink colour flower, red colour flushes, orange apple	-	-	-	-
8	Cashew clone-AC22	2006	Pink colour flower, Brown colour flushes, red apple	9	8	16	19
9	Cashew clone-AC34	2006	Pink colour flower, green colour flushes, yellow apple	-	-	-	-
10	Cashew clone-AC43	2006	Pink colour flower, brown colour flushes, red apple	8	18	13	25
11	Cashew clone-AZA2	2006	Pink colour flower, brown colour flushes, greenish yellow apple colour	5	13	20	15
12	Cashew clone-AZA17	2006	Pink colour flower, yellow apple colour	8	9	18	19
13	Cashew clone-AZA17/79	2006	Pink colour flower, brown colour flushes, yellow apple colour	4	7	10	14
14	Cashew clone-AZA17/156	2006	Pink colour flower, brown colour flushes, orange apple colour	-	-	-	-
15	Cashew clone-AZA17/158	2006	Pink flower colour, dark brown colour flushes, yellow apple colour	4	9	12	13
16	Cashew clone-AC4/285	2006	Pink flower colour, red colour flushes, orange apple colour	9	16	22	29
17	Cashew Hybrid -H1	2015	Bright green-brown flushes. Immature nuts are purple, which then change to green at maturity.	5.35	5.04	15.2	15.15
18	Cashew Hybrid -H3	2015	Pink brown flushes leave.	6.21	3.8	15.48	17.23
19	Cashew Hybrid -H4	2015	Nut suture projection is behind the apex.	6.69	7.9	13.77	16.52
20	Cashew Hybrid -H5	2015	Angular apple.	7.39	10.17	12.31	19.18
21	Cashew Hybrid -H6	2015	Pink apple spots.	5.18	4.94	10.76	15.79
22	Cashew Hybrid -H7	2015	Light pink Nut eye.	5.54	7.38	8.71	16.07
23	Cashew Hybrid -H8	2015	Spreading plant growth habit. Rounded Apple.	3.72	6.23	8.97	13.06
24	Cashew Hybrid -H9	2015	Strips on young nuts	3.72	6.23	8.97	13.06
25	Cashew Hybrid -H11	2015	Detachment of Nut from the apple is intermediate	8.3	2.21	9.73	17.53
26	Cashew Hybrid -H13	2015	Reddish yellow leaf at senescence	5.52	5.62	10.71	14.01
27	Cashew Hybrid -H14	2015	Medium compactness of Inflorescence	5.53	5.57	9.42	15.35
28	Cashew Hybrid -H15	2015	Deep red Apple. Green young Nuts	5.72	6.32	9	16.62
29	Cashew Hybrid -H16	2015	Circular leaf blade	5.76	8.63	9.64	13.43
30	Cashew Hybrid -H18	2015	Green strips on Apple	4.92	6.62	10.21	13.33
31	Cashew Hybrid -H22	2015	The bases of the Nuts are Angular	7.11	8.25	11.37	16.75
32	Cashew Hybrid -H25	2015	Dark purple Flushes leaves	6.39	7.08	12.66	14.77
33	Cashew Hybrid -H28	2015	Green mid-rib of flushes. Pink young nuts. Green-yellow leaves at senescence	5.28	7.28	8.22	13.82
34	Cashew Hybrid -H29	2015	A cleft on the young nut	6.51	6.49	10.07	19.01
35	Cashew Hybrid -H30	2015	A suture is closer to apex on young nuts	7.49	9.65	13.32	17.39
36	Cashew Hybrid -H31	2015	Light Orange Apple	5.27	6.53	10.09	12.86
37	Cashew Hybrid -H32	2015	Young nuts are purple green	6.72	7.02	13.72	13.91
38	Cashew Hybrid -H33	2015	Purple leaves at senescence	6.6	4.52	9.85	13.62
39	Tanzania Dwarf Cashew-TDC1	2016	Medium in Florence and purple-green young nut	0.64	4.1	3.1	10.4
40	Tanzania Dwarf Cashew-TDC2	2016	Light brown leaf flushes	1.2	2.9	2	10.7
41	Tanzania Dwarf Cashew-TDC3	2016	Nut base and suture are flattened and rounded respectively	1.5	3.9	3	9.6
42	Tanzania Dwarf Cashew-TDC4	2016	Red-brown flushes leaf with pink nut eye	2	4	3.8	10.8
43	Tanzania Dwarf Cashew-TDC7	2016	Brown of mature leaf and deep grooves on the apex of Apple	2	3.5	3.3	9.6
44	Tanzania Dwarf Cashew-TDC8	2016	Wide leaf blade width	1.6	3.9	3.6	9.1
45	Tanzania Dwarf Cashew-TDC9	2016	Pointed nut apex	2.3	3.9	3.9	10
46	Tanzania Dwarf Cashew-TDC10	2016	Dark green mature leaves, large stem girth and flattened apple apex	1.7	4	3.5	8.5
47	Tanzania Dwarf Cashew-TDC12	2016	The yellowish green of mature leaves	0.46	4.2	1.7	8.5
48	Tanzania Dwarf Cashew-TDC13	2016	Red-brown flushes leaf	1.3	2.9	1.2	7.6
49	Tanzania Dwarf Cashew-TDC14	2016	Dense inflorescence, medium number of nuts per panicle, and red apple	2.9	3.4	3.4	12
50	Tanzania Dwarf Cashew-TDC15	2016	A cleft on the young nut and a very large apple	1.8	3.8	2.3	8.9
51	Tanzania Dwarf Cashew-TDC16	2016	Deep red flushes leaf and very small red apple	1.3	2.6	2.1	8.5
52	Tanzania Dwarf Cashew-TDC22	2016	Medium inflorescence and many numbers of nuts per panicle	0.95	3.7	1.9	7.5
53	Tanzania Dwarf Cashew-TDC23	2016	Flattened apple apex	3.2	3.5	3.2	8.8
54	Tanzania Dwarf Cashew-TDC24	2016	Medium in time flowering	1.1	3.4	2.8	6

Source: (Masawe, 2006; Masawe & Kapinga, 2016, 2017)

Probit, Truncated and Tobit regression estimates for improved planting materials, pesticides application and recommended spacing

Variables	Improved planting materials			Pesticides application			Recommended Spacing
	Probit	Truncated	Tobit	Probit	Truncated	Tobit	Probit	Truncated	Tobit
Farmer and Household parameters
Age	0.004	0.001	0.107	−0.003	0.003	0.193	0.311	0.214	0.097
Gender	0.046	0.259	1.606	0.572 (0.12)***	0.235	0.795	0.218	0.008	0.702
HH_size	0.058 (0.019)**	0.078	0.098	−0.008	0.032	0.827 (0.074)***	0.067 (0.102)**	0.005	0.733
Years_Schooling	0.053(0.018)***	0.036	0.004 (0.081)*	0.077 (0.013)***	0.007 (0.083)**	0.181 (0.013)**	0.017	0.645	0.092 (0.25)**
Age of cashew trees	−0.465 (−0.012)*	0.023	0.158	0.063	0.622	0.947	−0.723 (−0.195)**	0.006	0.011
Wealth or economic
Farm size/land	0.014	0.004	0.389	0.012 (0.002)*	0.006 (0.058)*	0.292	−0.002	0.678 (0.31)**	0.812 (0.03)**
Off-farm income	0.132 (0.267)**	0.067 (0.037)**	0.996	0.038	0.091	0.217	0.234	0.512	0.795
Asset endowment	0.014	0.143	0.033 (0.059)**	0.088	−0.445	0.123 (0.046)*	−0.05	−0.078	0.592
Institutional and access
Access to extension	1.158 (0.421)***	0.781 (0.294)*	0.064 (0.077)**	0.253	1.087	0.175	0.66 (0.529)***	−7.217	0.641
Group membership	0.014 (0.164)*	0.952 (0.186)***	0.419	0.035 (0.489)*	0.452 (0.027)***	0.524 (0.82)**	0.307	−6.727	0.037
Access to credit	−0.239	−0.395	0.288 (0.345)***	0.442 (0.53)**	0.151 (0.198)**	0.389 (0.231)***	0.488 (0.244)*	0.453 (0.02)***	0.68 (0.12)**
Geographical residence	0.035 (0.322)*	0.741	0.313 (0.111)**	0.211	−0.029	0.115	0.325	0.012	0.019
Log likelihood	−33.578	−732.422	−118.213	217.326	124.885	240.116	324.521	197.394	211.981
Number of observation	760	738	719	760	693	752	658	519	472
LR χ^2 (12)	86.861***	47.96**	15.31*	35.829**	36.956**	78.251***	38.133***	37.384**	92.418**
Pseudo R^2	0.116	0.064	0.028	0.073	0.259	0.095	0.042	0.082	0.034
Likelihood ratio statistics	314.2***			198.57**			173.91***

Note: The values in parenthesis are marginal effects and the asterisks ***, ** and * shows Significance levels at 1%, 5% and 10% respectively.

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