Elsevier

Ecological Economics

Volume 43, Issues 2–3, December 2002, Pages 175-183
Ecological Economics

ANALYSIS
Soil fertility management and socio-economic factors in crop-livestock systems in Burkina Faso: a case study of composting technology

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0921-8009(02)00208-2Get rights and content

Abstract

The relation between technology adoption and farmers’ socio-economic characteristics has increasingly been given attention in developing countries. However, most of the studies conducted by economists dealt with the adoption of external technologies. Here, we test the determinants of compost adoption, an alternative indigenous technology for soil fertility management. The results of analysis of data from Burkina Faso, using Logit model, strongly support the hypothesis that farmers’ socio-economic characteristics and their agro-ecological location significantly affect their adoption decisions. There are two main conclusions of this study: first, the agro-ecological location of farmers influence their decision to widely adopt compost technology. Second, among farmers’ characteristics affecting compost adoption, three groups can be distinguished. The most important socio-economic characteristics are farmers’ age, their comparative perception on the yield effect of compost with regards to other fertilizers and their annual agricultural income. A second group of characteristics include the institutional factors, which are represented by the farmers’ participation in extension workshops. A third group of factors comprises the farmer's labor force participating rate, the number of ruminants owned and farmers gender.

Introduction

Soil degradation is common in developing countries, particularly in the sub-Saharan zone of West Africa (Oucho, 1998). This is mainly due to soil fragility associated with high population pressure and limited arable land for subsistence requirements. In general, these result in rapid environmental deterioration and subsequently unsustainable development. The debate on the population-land relationship has been going on for several decades (Allan, 1965). It has focused on African traditional practices in both crop and animal husbandry. These practices are characterized as extensive systems, a low level of external inputs and poor resource base leading to reduction in soil productivity. This progressive decline affects the flow of renewable resources from the soils through the reduction of soil fertility (Pierce, 1990).

In response to this, research centers have developed technology packages to overcome the decline in soil fertility. These technologies have focused on the use of imported inorganic fertilizers to maintain and/or increase crop productivity. Their effects on crop yield have been argued to be profitable (Nagy et al., 1987). In order to promote the adoption of these technologies, governments or rural development projects with the assistance from international donors often subsidize costs (Hilhorst et al., 2000). However, despite these efforts, the adoption levels of soil fertility management technologies are still poor in these ecological and socio-economic settings.

Explanations given for failure of technology transfer include the high cost of chemical fertilizers, ignorance of application techniques and the conservative attitude of farmers (Chambers, 1991). Also implicated in the failure is the top-down approach to technology transfer from scientists through extension agents to farmers. The approach is faulted in its perception of farmers as passive recipients of technologies (Whyte, 1981). Recently, new concepts of research and development have changed this perception. Farmers are now seen as partners in research activities and extension services. Many studies have focused on the necessity for farmers’ involvement in technology development and transfer.

Based on this approach, several studies were carried out throughout Africa, including Burkina Faso. In the participatory surveys, socio-economic factors affecting farmers’ decisions to adopt soil fertility technologies were evaluated. Chuma et al. (2000) and Campbell et al. (1997) reported that land availability and farmers’ wealth were determinants of the choice between different soil fertility management practices in Zimbabwe. In a participatory appraisal carried out in Burkina Faso, Lompo et al. (2000) reported that farmers’ resources endowment affects the adoption of composting. Other studies have also linked socio-economic factors with technology adoption (Dufumier, 1994, Baidu-Forson et al., 1997, Norman et al., 1981, Pingali et al., 1987).

Despite the potential importance of socio-economic factors on adoption of soil fertilization technologies, there have been few empirical studies of it in Burkina Faso. An exception is the literature on the link between soil fertility management and food crop production (Prudencio, 1983), but that study did not determine how soil fertility management could be influenced by farmers’ socio-economic characteristics. As the fallow period becomes shorter, the land for cultivation is scarce and government's subsidies for chemical fertilizers are no longer possible, the issue of decreasing soil fertility can no longer be solved without considering to farmers’ characteristics.

This study addresses the gap in the empirical literature on the adoption of soil fertility technology by testing hypothesized relations using an analysis of technology adoption.

Section snippets

Conceptual framework and modeling the adoption of compost technology

The conceptual framework of this study is based on a new approach to consumer theory developed by Lancaster (1966). It is assumed that adoption is an activity in which technologies, singly or in combination, are inputs and in which the output is a collection of characteristics. The neoclassical economic theory assumes that each decision-maker is able to compare two alternatives a and b in the choice set using a preference-indifference operator ≥. If ab, the decision-maker either prefers a to b

Empirical modeling and hypothesis considerations

The estimation of the empirical models is discussed below. All the models are based on Eq. (1) from which the subsequent derivations are made using SHAZAM software (White, 1993). The dependant variable (Yi) was chosen as binary variable with a value 1 for those farmers who apply compost and 0 otherwise.

Explanatory variables for the village's models are respectively, farmers’ subjective assessments of: yield performance (YEFPER) of using compost instead of other fertilizers (1 if positive

Data and study area

The data used to estimate the models were obtained from a survey conducted in Burkina Faso in 2000. The survey covered socio-economic and demographic characteristics of farm households, land and livestock resources, farm income, fertilizer availability and utilization, farmers’ perception on the status of their land fertility and on the effect of compost with comparison to other fertilizers, in two villages for 116 households. Based on the previous study conducted by the Departement Productions

Results of the Logit model estimation

The results for the compost model in Lelly are given in Table 2. The analyses show that farmers’ age (AGE) and gender (GDR) were negatively related to the probability of adoption of compost, at 1 and 5% levels, respectively. On the other hand, three farmers’ productive resources were positively significant in explaining adoption decisions: the labor force participating ratio (LFPR), the number of ruminants owned by farmers (NURUM) and the annual agricultural income (AGRINC). The coefficient of

Discussion

The results of this study show some important patterns in the role of farmers’ characteristics, the perception they have on the yield effects of compost and the institutional factors affecting adoption behavior. Empirically, the significance and the direction of the effect of these factors on agricultural technologies are not yet well established.

In this study, the age of the farmer (AGE) had a negative impact on adoption, with a significant effect in the three models. Older farmers are less

Conclusion

The analyses in this paper showed that farmers’ characteristics and agro-ecological conditions are very important determinants of compost adoption behavior. Four sets of points are of note regarding the links between a labor demanding technology such as composting and the probability that farmers adopt it.

First, the negative impact of the farmer's age raises the problem of which category of farmers should be involved in the development of such a technology. To date, resource persons for

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to express their gratitude to the International Funds for Agricultural Development (IFAD) for the financial support of this study. Raffaele Mattioli provided useful comments on the earlier version of the paper. The authors gratefully acknowledge the insightful suggestions and useful comments of the three anonymous reviewers. The authors also acknowledge Steven Leak, Samuel Adediran, Mirjam Steglich and Bosso N'Guetta Austin for their comments. We specifically thank three

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    Managing soil fertility in Africa: diverse settings and changing practice

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