..........................
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
This thesis work uses a sample of 128 farm household to analyze agricultural practices, andaccess impact of the MDS on cocoa beans quality and household welfare in Central and South-west Cameroon. Estimation from the Tobit model indicate that adoption of this technology, islargely influenced by several factors namely; level of education, size of household, extensionavailability of credit / subsidies etc. However, an effort remains to be made so that householdshave easier access to credit, subsidies and extension services. Using endogenous switchingregression, inverse probability weighting and propensity score matching models, the thesisfurther reveals that the adoption of MDS results in significant gains in yield, householdincomes and cocoa beans quality. The results reveal that MDS had significant impacts onadopters through the reduction of poverty. On average, the adoption of MDS increased yieldsfrom 614.74 to 679.04 kg / ha range and the household income per capita from 86.21 XAF to108.95 XAF. The adoption process also reduced the probability of poverty by 9% for adoptersand increased the return by a probability of 9% and by about 12% respectively. The higherMDS adoption rate is associated with good cocoa beans quality, higher incomes and improvedyields if most farmers earn more from their own product. Adopters would lose considerably ifthey had not adopted MDS while non-adopters would benefit more if they had adopted MDS.Thus, encouraging new technologies such as MDS should be the mission of the government. Italso highlights the need for policies to improve the uptake of MDS among non-adoptersthrough more efficient extension, credits and input supply systems.
reference(omitted)
