Abstract

The use of rhizobium inoculants fertilizer in soybean production has been practiced for over a century all over the world, but in Africa, the technology is relatively new. Rhizobium inoculants have been disseminated in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) by Nitrogen 2 Africa (N2AFRICA) project of CIAT and later IITA since 2010. However, demographic factors and perception in rhizobium adoption remain unknown. We assessed the demographic factors and perception in rhizobium inoculant adoption among 193 smallholder soybeans farmers of South Kivu Province of DRC. The information was collected in September 2018 and included farms and farmers socio-economic characteristics and farmer’s adoption and perception of rhizobium inoculants. We used Probit model to assess the factors that are likely to influence the adoption and measured the perception using 5-point Likert-type scale. Results indicated that the adoption of rhizobium inoculants was very low in South Kivu (21%) and was highly influenced (P<0.01) by gender of the household head, farmer’s location, education type of household head, the knowledge of nodules roles and the household income. The perception of inoculant by farmers also highly influenced its adoption. Furthermore, farmers strongly perceive rhizobium as an affordable nitrogen source for enhancing soybeans productivity but less available in the market. More effort is needed in farmers’ education about BNF to improve adoption of inoculants.

Key words:  Adoption, perception, smallholder’s farmers, Biofix, Soybeans, N2 Africa, rhizobium inoculants.