Variety Adoption of Orphan Crops by Smallholder Farmers in Tanzania - A Survey Based Choice Experiment

In Sub-Saharan Africa, 75% of the extreme poor are living in rural areas and agriculture is one of the principle ways out of poverty for them. As possibilities to extend the cultivated area are limited, productivity gains will be needed to increase future agricultural production. The improvement of seed technologies is expected to play a crucial role in this context. In the last decades, research was mostly undertaken in regard to crops for high potential areas and so called orphan crops that are especially suitable for semi-arid areas have been overlooked.