An Analysis of Smallholder Farmers’ Socio-economic Determinants for Inputs Use: A Case of Major Rice Producing Regions in Tanzania

Abstract

This study is intended to contribute to the existing knowledge on enhancing sustainable input use strategies for identifying needy famers and addressing the low input use among smallholder farmers for improved crop productivity in Tanzania and other rural agricultural based economies. Hence, the study analyzed smallholder farmers’ socio-economic determinants for inputs use in major rice producing regions in Tanzania. A sample for the study comprised of 842 rice farming households from five major paddy (rice) producing regions of Mbeya, Morogoro, Shinyanga, Mwanza and Tabora. These sample households were drawn from FAO database extracted from the Tanzania National Panel Survey (2010 – 2011). Household socioeconomic and farm production information were extracted from the database. Descriptive analyses were used to summarize the collected information. Probit model was used to assess determinants of input use among the farming households. The study found that the probability of using agricultural inputs increase with education level, quantity of crops produced, livestock, farm income  while it decrease with total number of livestock and nonfarm income owned by a household. The study also found difference in input use preferences among regions; in Mbeya more use in maize while in Shinyanga more input use in rice. Based on these findings, our study concluded that in order to raise the use of agricultural fertilizer among smallholder farmers, policy makers and development agencies should put more efforts on developing and implementing sustainable strategies such as improving market infrastructure that lead to improved access to input and output markets thereby improving farmers’ incomes. Price policies are also important to increase and stabilize farmers’ incomes and incentivize use of and investment in improved agricultural technologies such as improved agricultural inputs, seeds and post-harvest management techniques.

Keywords: agricultural inputs, smallholder farmers, probit model, Tanzania