Pathways to sustainable intensification of the coffee-banana agroecosystems in the Mt. Elgon region
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Date
2019
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Cogent Food & Agriculture
Abstract
Despite the importance of coffee and banana as key income and food
sources for millions of farmers inhabiting the densely populated East African highlands
as well as and urban dwellers, there are declining yields. One of the causes for
this decline is increased soil degradation that has led to recent conversions of more
forest land into crop land in marginal and sensitive mountain ecosystems. However,
evidence shows that only a few households manage the desired shift to sustainable
production systems, mainly due to social, economic and environmental constraints.
In this study we therefore, set out to find out typologies of coffee-banana farms
based on intensification levels and pathways taken using a number of agricultural
intensification surrogate indicators. We also sought to find the driving factors and
barriers for intensification. Using Principal Component, cluster and Pearson correlation
analyses, and later both a Generalised Linear and Multinomial Logit models,
results revealed four distinct intensification pathways, one of which is a high-inputhigh-
output conventional pathway and the other three were low-to-medium input agroecological pathways. Adoption of an intensification pathway could be impeded
by geographical location, wealth status in form of livestock, land and lack of credit
access. We found the hypothesis that resource-rich farmers intensify by capital
investments, while the resource-constrained farmers intensify through labour true
for the conventional and agroecological intensification pathways respectively. The
existence of intermediary pathways under the agroecological classification creates
opportunities for interventions that target to increase yields while reducing degradation
and negative environmental impacts of agriculture.
Description
Keywords
Intensification, Coffee, Banana, Principal component analysis, Generalized linear model, Uganda
Citation
Christopher Sebatta, Johnny Mugisha, Fredrick Bagamba, Ernst A. Nuppenau, Stephanie E. Domptail, Benjamin Kowalski, Matthias Hoeher, Anthony R. Ijala & Jeninah Karungi | (2019) Pathways to sustainable intensification of the coffee-banana agroecosystems in the Mt. Elgon region, Cogent Food & Agriculture, 5:1, 1611051, DOI: 10.1080/23311932.2019.1611051