article · Cogent Social Sciences
A study of 796 farm households in the North Shewa Zone of Ethiopia examined gender disparities in agricultural technology uptake. Technology adoption was significantly higher among male-headed households at 87.3 percent compared to 61.2 percent for female-headed households. Female-headed households had less access to education and smaller land sizes, which directly contributed to their lower adoption rates. Key factors significantly influencing the decision to adopt agricultural innovations include the household head's gender, education level, and marital status, alongside financial factors like saving participation and credit access. Structural and economic variables, such as agricultural cooperative membership, proximity to markets, frequency of agricultural extension visits, total arable land area, and livestock ownership, also determined uptake. The findings point to a need for agricultural development programmes to deliberately target and support economically disadvantaged and female-headed households to bridge the adoption gap.
Understanding the barriers to agricultural technology adoption is vital for designing equitable rural development interventions. The evidence highlights that female-headed farm households face systemic resource constraints, including lower access to credit, education, and land. Addressing these specific disparities ensures that agricultural innovations reach all farmers, helping to improve food security and rural livelihoods more broadly across farming communities.
This research provides applied survey evidence relevant to agricultural extension providers, microfinance organisations, and agricultural technology developers operating in regional farming systems. Commercial providers targeting smallholder farmers must account for structural constraints, such as smaller landholdings and limited credit access, when deploying new tools. Tailoring distribution models and credit mechanisms to female-headed households is essential to expand the customer base for agricultural innovations in comparable rural markets.
AI-generated from the published abstract. Always read the original work before citing.
This paper aims to analyze gender differences in the adoption of agricultural technology in the North Shewa Zone, Amhara Region, Ethiopia. The data were collected in 2021 from 796 farm households and were analyzed using binary logit model. The results show that the adoption rate of agricultural technology in the zone by male-headed (87.3%) and female-headed households are significantly different, and adoption is lower for female-headed households (61.2%). The descriptive results reveal that female headed households had lower access to education, land size, and for that reason technology adoption. Moreover, the results show that the decision to adopt agricultural technology is significantly influenced by the gender of the household, the level of education of the householder, the marital status of the householder, participation in saving, membership of an agricultural cooperative, distance from the market and access to extension visits, access to certain credit, total arable land and livestock asset. Therefore, the results suggest that policies and programs that aim at developing and disseminating agricultural technology in the Zone should vigorously support economically less endowed but more gender-egalitarian, especially female-headed ones.
This page summarises published work. The authoritative version sits with the publisher.
DOI: 10.1080/23311886.2022.2069209
Is something wrong with this record? Report it or request removal.
Discussion
Have you built on this work, tried to replicate it, or seen it applied in practice? Share what you know. Verified researchers and MARATTO™ domain experts can open a discussion, and any member can reply. Contributions are reviewed before they appear.
No discussion yet. Open the first thread.
New to MARATTO™? Create a free account.
