Analysis of Socio-Economic Factors Influencing Farmers’ Adoption of Coffee Organic Farming in Gakenke District of Rwanda

Abstract

Smallholder-based agriculture is the main source of livelihood, especially in the rural areas, where most of the population live. Coffee is one of the most important cash crops across the world and a major source of export earnings. The adoption on awareness of farmers about organic farming is one of the best preferable measures to improve both high quality and quantity of coffee production. The general objective of this study is to analyze socio-economic factors influencing farmers’ adoption of coffee organic farming in Gakenke district of Rwanda. This study employed a cross-sectional survey design and a multi-stage sampling technique was adopted to select sample for this study. Hence, the total sample size for this study was 182 respondents. Descriptive statistics such as frequency and percentage was used to analyze the first and second objectives. While inferential statistics (logit regression) was used to analyze objective three. The overall objective of the study to analyze socio-economic factors influencing farmers ‘adoption of coffee organic farming in Gakenke district of Rwanda. In this study, the majority 60.4% of the respondents were male. Result shows that farmers had high level of awareness in Recycle wastes of plant and animal (100%). The most commonly and highly adopted practices was crop rotation of intercropped crops such as bush beans, tomatoes, pineapple and vegetables in general. The result of logit regression analysis in Table 4 shows that four factors such as education level, land size, farming experience and gender had positive and significant influence on adoption of organic coffee farming. It was therefore recommended that youth should be encouraged and supported to enter this sector because they are in their active age and are more adopter of innovation than old people who are more conservators. Provision of training and technical advice on organic farming practices through agricultural extension services and developing information networks among farmers is vital.