Determinants of Adoption and Farmers' Preferences for Cassava Varieties in Kabare Territory, Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo

Cassava plays a major role in households' food and income security in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Despite multiple efforts to overcome the problem of low productivity in cassava production through the introduction of improved technologies, the level of adoption of such technologies by farmers has remained low in eastern DRC. This study, therefore, aimed at identifying determinants of adoption and farmers' preferences for cassava varieties in Kabare Territory, eastern DRC. A participatory approach was used to collect data on 250 cassava smallholder farmers in five different zones called "groupements" including Cirunga, Kagabi, Bugorhe, Katana, and Mumosho. Results showed that improved cassava varieties are adopted by 28.8% of smallholder farmers. Membership in an agricultural cooperative, access to planting material as a credit, education level, gender, and cropping system had a positive influence on improved varieties' adoption. In contrary, field-to-house distance, location and total farm size had a negative effect on adoption decision. This study demonstrated that introduced varieties possess most of traditional desirable traits (yield potential, taste, high disease resistance and early maturity) but are lacking local (regional) farmers' preferences such as leaf production, in-soil storage, bitterness, tuber color which had limited adoption by farmers who continue relying on local landraces (88%) for those traits. Therefore, in addition to addressing negative factors that prevent adoption, specific attention should be given by cassava breeders to local specific preferences if the objective is to increase adoption of improved varieties by farmers in eastern DRC.