Understanding farmers’ perceptions on advisory services in Tanzania: Comparative insights from principal component analysis and Q-methodology

Abstract

Agricultural advisory services help farmers to access farming skills, technologies and agricultural markets. The services are offered by different actors, who all together form the pluralistic advisory service providers. In recent years, pluralistic advisory service providers have emerged in various developing countries including Tanzania. Pluralistic providers have different institutional arrangements and varying levels of effectiveness, which lead farmers to have diverse perceptions towards them. However, the perceptions of farmers on pluralistic advisory services have not been fully documented, making it difficult to gauge the level of acceptance of the diverse services offered. This paper employs principal component analysis (PCA) and Q-methodology to elicit farmers' perceptions on the pluralistic services using samples of 627 and 23 farmers, respectively. Results from both methods showed that pluralistic providers offered diverse services ranging from production to market information. Further, the two approaches provided concurring findings that advisory services offered did not meet farmers’ advisory demands. Furthermore, each method served to fill the shortcomings of the other. Therefore, we recommend a complementary application of both approaches rather than treating them as mutually exclusive in the analysis of perceptions.

Keywords

• Perceptions
• Agricultural advisory services
• Principal component analysis
• Q-methodology
• Tanzania