Kennedy Ntabo Otiso
Kibabii University 1st International Conference; June 22-24,2016
Abstract
Mango is a highly seasonal tropical fruit, very popular among millions of people in the tropics. It also occupies a prominent place among the best fruits of the world. The impact of innovations is determined by the extent to which farmers adopt available innovations and the speed by which they take up the innovations. Among the technologies to be employed by farmers is the value addition technology, which is not just applied to post harvest, but also during the process of planting like Grafting of the indigenous varieties so that varieties which are marketable can be produced The study was conducted in Machakos County about the factors that influence the adoption of value addition technologies among Mango fruit farmers. The study used both descriptive and correlational study design to describe and make a correlational analysis of the factors. Two hundred and thirty seven randomly selected Mango fruit farmers participated in the study. A questionnaire was used to collect data. The finding of the study revealed that majority of the farmers had sorters as their post-harvest handling technology. They also tend to agree that they have access to credit facilities; farmers have enough infrastructures to run values addition facilities. In addition, farmers agreed that they had technical skill to operate the machines, and were aware about the value addition technologies. The main reason why farmers do not use post-harvest handling technologies was due to high cost of acquiring the technology (64.6%). Farmers strongly agreed that they are motivated to use the equipment but the main hindering factor also was lack of awareness among the farmers (34.6%). The study recommended that farmers should be advised to utilize the available credit facilities to adopt value addition technologies so that more profit can be realized.
