5.2.10 Rate of Adoption of technologies disseminated to sorghum farmers There were considerable high levels of adoption of technologies disseminated to sorghum farmersunder ATASP-1 project as shown in table 25. From the table, cultivation of improved seed recorded100% level of adoption while plant population was at about 93% level of adoption. On the other hand, fertilizer application with micro dosing of organic with inorganic fertilizer recorded about 99% level of adoption while minimum tillage recorded 60% level of adoption. The only technology with the very low level of adoption at about 38% is mechanization. There is therefore the need to intensify effort on this as well as provide incentives that will encourage the uptake of this particular technology to enable farmers engage in large scale production which can only be possible under mechanized farming. Also, a graphical presentation of technologies disseminated to sorghum farmers are as presented in figure 6. From this figure, except mechanization where the rate of adoption was about 38%, all other technologies have an impressive scores ranging from 60% to 100%. It is an indication that farmers have embraced these technologies and this is expected to lead to substantial increase in output in sorghum production. Table 25: Rate of adoption of sorghum technologies S/No 1 2 3 4 5
Technologies Improved variety Plant population 0.75 x 0.3m 2 plants per hill Tillage: minimum Tillage (use of herbicides) Fertilizer application: Micro dosing of organic and inorganic fertilizer Mechanization * Multiple responses were allowed
Frequency* 80 74 48 79 30
Percentage 100 92.5 60 98.75 37.5
Figure 6: Bar chart showing rate of technology adoption by sorghum farmers (the serial number corresponds with the number on table 25)
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