An Economic Assessment of Banana Genetic Improvement and ...

SOCIAL CAPITAL AND SOIL FERTILITY MANAGEMENT IN UGANDA 105
enhance the adoption decisionmaking, because
they act as opinion leaders. Betterconnected
leaders may mobilize more extensive
links to new information on farming
methods (Granovetter 1973), thereby reducing
the time lag to adoption.
The role of bilateral transfers from social
networks in the extent of mulching and
manure use decisions was also assessed. Net
transfer of labor, cash, and other consumer
durable goods were included as measures of
resources accessed from social networks.
Most forms of the bilateral transfers from
social networks were not significant in decisions
on the extent of use, except net transfers
in the form of gifts, which were negatively
associated with manure application.
One possible interpretation for the negative
sign is that people who receive gifts are
poor, and they use the transfers on their
basic needs rather than on banana production.
Hogset (2005) also found a weak,
though positive, association between bilateral
transfers and the adoption of soil conservation
technologies in Kenya. Lack of
statistical significance for most of the forms
of bilateral transfers is an indication that
social capital does not perfectly substitute
for markets in agriculture development.
Conclusion
The first conclusion from this analysis is
that soil fertility management decisions of
banana producers depend on a host of factors.
Second, the analysis demonstrates the
significance of a range of factors related to
social capital in soil fertility management
decisions, confirming the importance of
investigating the role of such factors in agricultural
development. Results provide evidence
that the density of membership in
associations, the characteristics of those
associations, and the amount of bilateral
transfers accruing to the household from its
social networks significantly influence soil
fertility management decisions. The nature
of the relationship of these factors to the
management practices depends on the type
of the technology and also on the specific
form of social capital used in the analysis.
This finding supports the conclusion that
accounting for social capital in development
projects should be based on a thorough
analysis of the institutional context,
relating this context to the properties of the
technology.
The results also indicate that density of
household membership positively influences
the extent of mulching, implying that where
the promotion of mulching is the main
objective, household members should be
encouraged to participate more in associations
while minimizing the negative consequences
on the use of other production
techniques. Through interactions in associations,
members may share information from
their experiments. Because the information
gained comes from other farmers whose
opinion the adopter trusts, the potential
adopter may skip the stage of experimentation
and hence adopt the technology extensively.
In addition, when more members
participate in associations, they can pool
information, so that the influence of the association
carries over to the farm, persuading
those who manage banana plants to
conform.
Characteristics of associations are the
other aspect of informal institutional social
networks that were hypothesized to be important
in soil management decisions. Two
characteristics were examined: (1) the capacity
of leadership, represented by heterogeneity
of leadership in terms of education
and livelihood; and (2) norms of decisionmaking.
Results support the prior expectation
that capacity of leadership and norms
of decisionmaking are important in soil
management decisions. The most important
policy conclusion from this result is that
interventions that use group-based approaches
should consider sensitizing people
to the role and importance of leaders and