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DIVERSITY IN SMALLHOLDER FARMS GROWING COFFEE AND THEIR USE OF RECOMMENDED COFFEE MANAGEMENT PRACTICES IN UGANDA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 February 2015

GHISLAINE BONGERS ,
LUUK FLESKENS ,
GERRIE VAN DE VEN ,
DAVID MUKASA ,
KEN GILLER  and
PIET VAN ASTEN
GHISLAINE BONGERS*
Affiliation:
International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, P.O. Box 7878, Kampala, Uganda Plant Production Systems Group, Wageningen University, 6700 AK, Box 430, Wageningen, the Netherlands
LUUK FLESKENS
Affiliation:
Sustainable Research Institute, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK Soil Physics and Land Management Group, Wageningen University, 6700 AA, Box 47, Wageningen, the Netherlands
GERRIE VAN DE VEN
Affiliation:
Plant Production Systems Group, Wageningen University, 6700 AK, Box 430, Wageningen, the Netherlands
DAVID MUKASA
Affiliation:
International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, P.O. Box 7878, Kampala, Uganda
KEN GILLER
Affiliation:
Plant Production Systems Group, Wageningen University, 6700 AK, Box 430, Wageningen, the Netherlands
PIET VAN ASTEN
Affiliation:
International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, P.O. Box 7878, Kampala, Uganda
*
§Corresponding author. Email: ghislainebongers@gmail.com
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Summary

Many smallholder farm systems in Uganda produce coffee as an important cash crop. Yet coffee yields are poor. To increase farmers’ production, a range of agronomic practices have been recommended by national and international agencies. Yet the adoption potential of recommendations differs between farm systems. To understand the differences in adoption potential of recommended coffee management practices in Uganda, we provide a typology of farm systems with coffee, assess the diversity between the farm types, and evaluate the current use of existing management recommendations for each farm type. Through factor analysis and cluster analysis of farms producing coffee, we identified five farm types: large coffee farms, farms with off-farm activities, coffee-dependent farms, diversified farms, and banana–coffee farms. The farm types were based on differences in size, and on the relative contributions of coffee, banana and off-farm labour to total household income. They also differ in the availability of the resources labour, land and cash, in coffee production and revenue, and in current use of most recommended practices. Qualitative analysis indicates that farm types have different constraints and opportunities to adopt recommendations. Our results highlight that an analysis of different farm systems with coffee production, a degree of definition beyond the ‘smallholder coffee farmer’ as a homogenous entity, is important in order to understand the scope for success or failure of recommended practices.

Type
Research Article
Information
Experimental Agriculture , Volume 51 , Issue 4 , October 2015 , pp. 594 - 614
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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