Table 33: Effects of Adoption of GAP on Corp Production

The previous years' report indicates that there was strong positive impact made in managing the risks of specific environmental and climate variability and near-term climate change challenges through the technologies disseminated by ATASP-1, however, the sustainability of the technology adoption and adaptations requires continuous improvements. To address the above, ATASP-1 Program embarked on a proactive approach to building the capacity of the participants on adaptive and necessary technological systems, embedded in more robust food production and distribution techniques that are designed to be sustainable in the context of climate change. The technologies extended to the participants covered such farm management and postharvest operations like, pest and disease control, fertilizer application, threshing, cleaning, drying, storage, processing, harvesting, and packaging technologies.

The adoption and the adaptation of technologies that have strong imperative for sustainability of improved quality of life for the farmers and other operators across the value chain depends largely on how the technology mitigates the climate and specific environmental variability risks. This section evaluated the effect of ATASP-1 technologies on the outputs and income of the participants.

The ATASP-1 Program disseminated several Good Agronomic Practices to participating farmers in the production of 3 enterprise crops, Sorghum, Cassava and Rice across the SCPZs. The participating farmers gave responses based on the impact of the technologies extended to them before the adoption of the technologies and after the adoption of the technologies. The technologies disseminated includes farm management and postharvest operations knowledge and skills, pest and disease control, fertilizer application, threshing, cleaning, drying, storage, processing, harvesting, and packaging technologies.

Table 33: Effects of Adoption of GAP on Corp Production

Mean Production Non-Adopters Adopters Difference in Mean Percentage Difference

RICE N Mean SORGHUM N Mean CASSAVA N Mean Source: June 2020 Field Data 30 29 2458.8333 4911.4007 2452.5674 99.7%

28 29 1464.0714 3482.8621 2018.7907 137.9%

96 96 1089.2917 1895.1563 805.8646 74.0%