Analysis of factors affecting of fertilizer microdosing techniques among cereal smallholder farmers in Central Plateau Region of Burkina Faso

Abstract

Soil fertility was the major factors limiting agricultural production in Burkina Faso. The socioeconomic, institutional and technological characteristics affecting the adoption of "micro-dosing" technique were analyzed in this paper. The study was conducted in Oubritenga province in Burkina Faso. Data were collected from 247 cereal smallholder farmers chosen from the AGRA- microdose beneficiaries’ project. It concerned socio-economic, institutional and technology characteristics data and information on the use of micro-dosing technique in the province. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and multi regression model. It was found that the highest awareness was on extension agents (63.53%) and that adoption rate was low, that is 42.52% of the surveyed households. The results of multi regression model indicate that farming experience, affordability, accessibility, trialability had a positive influence on adoption of micro-dosing technique at 1% of probability level and farm size at 5% of probability level.  These results provide insight into farmer behavior in order to improve the production and wide dissemination of food crops such as sorghum, millet and maize.