Browsing by Author "Mwambu, Paul"

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    Agro-input dealers' perspectives on the designof a certification scheme for pesticide riskreduction
    (John Wiley and Sons Inc, 2024-12) Tambo, Justice A;; Holmes, Keith;; Aliamo, Caroline ;; Mbugua, Fredrick;; Alokit, Christine;; Muzira, Fred;; Byamugisha, Andrew;; Mwambu, Paul
    BACKGROUND: While pesticides are essential for crop protection and food security, they pose serious risks to human health and the environment. Agro‐input dealers can play an important role in mitigating pesticide risks, given that they are a major source of pesticides and plant health information for many developing‐country farmers. In this article, we assess the willingness of agro‐input dealers to offer integrated pest management‐based advisory services and promote pesticide risk reduction through a voluntary certification scheme. RESULTS: Using survey data from 557 agro‐input dealers in Uganda and a discrete choice experiment, we find that the proposed certification scheme is significantly valued by agro‐input dealers, particularly for its potential to provide training opportunities and ensure safety to human health and the environment. Agro‐input dealers have a positive attitude towards a certification scheme that restricts the sale of high‐risk pesticide products, especially if it stimulates additional income‐generating opportunities. Further analysis shows that preferences for voluntary certification attributes are influenced by certification experience, agro‐dealership experience, business ownership status and incidence of acute pesticide poisoning. CONCLUSION: The study findings demonstrate that agro‐input dealers are conscious of pesticide risks to human and environmental health and are keen to participate in a certification scheme promoting safer plant protection products. © 2024 The Author(s). Pest Management Science published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society of Chemical Industry. AGRICOLA
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    The role of agro-input dealer certification in promoting sustainable pest control: insights from Uganda
    (Taylor & Francis Group, 2024-01-05) Tambo, Justice A; Holmes, Keith A.; Aliamo, Caroline; Mbugua, Fredrick; Alokit, Christine; Muzira, Fred; Byamugisha, Andrew; Mwambu, Paul
    ABSTRACTPesticides are crucial for increasing agricultural productivity, but they have also beenlinked to a range of health and environmental risks. In this paper, we used nationallyrepresentative data from 557 agro-dealers in Uganda to assess the role of agro-dealercertification in improving knowledge and practices related to environmentally-friendly pest control. We found that almost half of the sampled agro-dealers werenot certified or accredited by regulatory bodies, even though this is a prerequisitefor selling pesticides in the country. Results further showed that only 16% of theagro-input shops were selling biopesticide products, largely due to a lack ofawareness, access and demand from farmers. Regression results showed thatcertified agro-dealers were 9–12 percentage points more likely to know aboutbiopesticides and integrated pest management, and 8–10 percentage points morelikely to sell biopesticide products, compared to their non-certified counterparts.Ourfindings imply that agro-dealer certification courses can play an important rolein raising knowledge and stimulating the supply of environmentally-benign pestcontrol products. We identified regulatory enforcement, a decentralizedcertification system and agro-dealer associations as some of the potentialpathways for incentivising compliance with certification requirements, therebypromoting lower-risk pest control products and strategies