Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Socio-Economic Factors Affecting Rice Production among Smallholder Farmers in Lukulu District, Western Zambia

2019; Volume: 5; Issue: 11 Linguagem: Inglês

10.20431/2454-6224.0511005

2454-6224

Emmanuel Musaba, Mundia Mukwalikuli,

Agriculture and Rural Development Research

Rice is an emerging staple food in Zambia which was declared a strategic food crop by the Zambian Government in 2007.The per capita consumption increased from 1.4kg per person in 2002 to 4.11kg per person in 2014.The total domestic consumption increased from 15,926 metric tonnes (MT) in 2002 to 59,728 MT in 2014.The increase in rice demand was driven by increases in urban population, rising incomes and change in tastes.Although Zambia has vast land and other resources suitable to produce enough rice for her population, domestic rice output has been below domestic demand which has led to importation of rice to satisfy domestic demand.In 2016, the rice deficit was estimated at 35,000 MT (Ministry of Finance and National Planning (MFND), 2017).Rice is grown in all the 10 provinces of Zambia but the major production areas are: Western province with 46% of the planted area, followed by Northern (32%), Muchinga (13%), Eastern (4%) and Luapula (4%) provinces.Rice production is carried out by small-scale farmers under rain-fed conditions and the main production ecologies are the flood plains of big rivers and dambos (MAL and CSO, 2016).Between 2002 and 2015, rice output increased from 11,645 MT to 49,000 MT, this was due to expansion in rice planted area from 12,926 Ha to 40,974 Ha.However, the increase in rice output and rice planted area, was not accompanied by productivity improvement.In fact, national annual average rice yield stagnated at 1.4 MT per Ha for most of the period and from 2010 it decreased to 1.14 MT per Ha (MAL and CSO, 2016).In short smallholder rice growers face persistent low rice productivity, which is below the potential yield of 3 MT per Ha.The low productivity has hindered Zambia's effort to achieve self-sufficiency in rice.The reasons for low productivity included using traditional methods of production with low mechanization, broadcasting of seed, the use of lowyielding tradition varieties, limited fertilizer application, limited weeding of fields, poor water management, limited access to credits, limited access to extension services, and limited access to markets due to poor state of feeder roads (MAL and CSO, 2016).Given the crucial role of rice in national food security, improvement of rice production and productivity is an overriding need to meet the government objective of national food security or Abstract: Despite the various efforts to increase rice production in Zambia, productivity has stagnated and rice production has not grown enough to meet domestic demand.This paper analyses socio-economic factors affecting rice production among smallholder farmers in Zambia.Purposive and random sampling techniques were used in sampling the 120 respondents from Lukulu district in Western province of Zambia.Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and econometric analysis.A Cobb-Douglas regression model was used to estimate the effects of socio-economic factors on smallholder farmers' rice output.It was found that land size, seed quantity, agrochemicals, labor, gender, extension access, and line planting were significant and positively related to rice output while off-farm income had a negative effect.The results suggest that farmers could improve rice output if assisted in accessing inputs (land, seed, herbicides, and labor), extension services and encouraged to adopt improved rice planting farming practices.Since male farmers obtained higher rice output than women farmers, differential effects of gender on rice production in the study area should be considered.