Table 30: Rate of Adoption of Cassava Technologies

4.5 Rate of Adoption of Technologies disseminated to farmers in the 4 SCPZs Delineating between rate of adoption and frequency of adoption is like differentiating between subjective and objective, or passive and active phases of the same event. While rate of adoption explains latent forces of the prospective candidate; frequency presents level of the actual deployment of the technology package.

Rate of adoption presents how much of the package does a respondent accept; this means, the survey considers to ascertain how many of the sampled respondents and to what degree do they accept efficacy of the technology as beneficial to their productive capacity. Whereas, frequency seeks to measure how often is the technology applied. Rate of adoption is determined by availability and dissemination of the package, often by the Extension agents (EAs) to the candidates: farmers, fabricators, and processors. But frequency is determined by availability, accessibility and the willingness of the candidate to deploy the technology appropriately in the course of production.

There is the need to constantly monitor the rate of adoption as the Program progresses so as to know what review to undertake to facilitate good level of adoption that will result in the envisaged outcome conceptualized by the Program from the onset. The rate of adoption of technologies under each of the three crops: Cassava, Sorghum and Rice have been captured by the study under this years' dry season and they are as presented below.

4.5.1 Rate of Adoption of technologies disseminated to cassava farmers From table 30 below, there were good levels of adoption of technologies disseminated to cassava farmers in the SCPZs across the country. Improved varieties, site selection, land preparation, soil fertility management and weed management were all effected at 100% by the respondents. On the other hand, plant spacing recorded 92%, record keeping has 77% adoption and yield assessment has 93% adoption rate. Nevertheless, the EAs were expected to do more to sustain adoption level and where need be to increase to maximum possible level. It was also believed that good outcome will definitely spread out to farmers within the communities and beyond. Table 30: Rate of Adoption of Cassava Technologies

S/No Technologies Frequency* Percentage 1 Improved variety 15 100 2 Site selection 15 100 3 Land preparation 15 100 4 Plant spacing/population 14 93.3 5 Weed management 15 100 6 Soil fertility 14 100 7 Harvesting market 15 100 8 Yield assessment 13 92.9 9 Conservation of stem across 13 100 10 Record keeping 10 76.9 * Multiple responses were allowed