Study On The Key Factors Influencing Cassava Production Increase In The Republic Of Congo

The Republic of Congo has enormous natural resources and has a great potential to produce enough food feed itself.However,the country is food insecure and a net importer of food.Cassava is the main staple crop of Congo providing high daily required calories.Also,it is considered as a food security crop because of its ability to do well in marginal soil and unfavourable growth conditions.Despite it attributes,cassava cultivation is limited,due to diseases,low output and post-harvest losses.In this work,we explored the factors influencing farmers' adoption of improved cassava varieties and assessed how it can ameliorate food insecurity in the Republic of Congo.A proportionate random sampling technique was used to select 252 farmers in Bouenza province to answer a structured questionnaire.Descriptive statistics was used to analysed socio-economic data while the probit regression model was used to analyse factors influencing the adoption of improved cassava varieties.The results showed that only a small proportion of farmers used improved varieties(26%)while the majority of the farmers used local planting material(47%).The factors which statistically and significantly influenced the intensity of adoption of improved cassava varieties were cassava farming experience,access to credit,thelevel of education,the number of extension visits,off-farm income and membership in a farmer association.Major limiting factors affecting the adoption of improved cassava varieties include access to improved planting material(72%),lack of credit(56%),lack of labour(51%),the high cost of planting material(47%),and lack of ready market for the produce(42%).Also,there was a significant difference among household's adoption of improved cassava varieties in relation to food insecurity characteristics.The food consumption score for the nonadopted,partially-adopted and adopted improved cassava variety households fell under poor(18.25),borderline(30.1)and acceptable(45.2)household groups respectively.Similarly,the adopted improved cassava variety household was less food insecure compared to the nonadopted,and partially-adopted improve cassava variety households with a CSI value of 27.825,66.00 and 97.175 respectively.This result suggests that,to increase the adoption agricultural technology and ameliorate food insecurity in the Republic of Congo,the government should develop strategies that provide access to credit,extension services,affordable and readily available planting materials,agricultural inputs,and equipment for post-harvest processing.