Factors influencing intensity of adoption of integrated water management innovations in the semi-arid areas of North-eastern Tanzania

The semi-arid areas of north-eastern Tanzania are faced by regular incidences of intra-seasonal dry spells which pose negatively impact on crop yields. The situation has forced farmers to practice different types of innovations including in situ capture and management of rainwater, collection, concentration, diversion and/or storage of run-off to mitigate the problems. This paper examines the main factors influencing intensity of adoption of water management innovations. The study was conducted through a cross-sectional survey in Makanya watershed, involving 234 farmers. Censored Tobit model was used to estimate the coefficients of intensity of adoption of the innovations. Intensity of adoption of the innovations was found to be between two and four. Most households (78.3%) had at least two innovations per plot, such as diversion canals, borders basin (sunken beds) and large planting pits, complimented with use of farm-yard manure, deep tillage, mulching and cover crops. The adoption intensity was higher in the uplands, with more than 56.7% of farmers having four or more innovations in their farms compared to 30.8% and 41.7% in the lowlands and midlands, respectively. Group networking, years spent in formal education, respondent's age and agricultural information pathways were found to be the major factors influencing the adoption intensity at farm-level. Considering these factors in the scaling out of the innovations is expected to improve their adoption and thus intensify management of water resources in semi-arid watersheds with similar settings like Makanya. This is critical for an effective promotion of best practices of integrated water management systems at landscape level

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