Gender and pest management: constraints to integrated pest management uptake among smallholder coffee farmers in Uganda

Even though both empirical and field evidence hail integrated pest management (IPM) as promising techniques for cost-effective and environment friendly control of agricultural pests, coffee farmers still rely on pesticides. A post coffee stem borer IPM training survey of 126 farmers reveals that farmers’ attitudes toward pesticides is a major constraint to IPM use. Farmers perceived that pesticide use simplifies pest management, produces higher yields and good quality coffee appealing to the buyers. On this basis, they mainly used pesticides compared to IPM practices for Coffee Stem Borer (CSB) pest management. Second, the CSB IPM practices are less appealing because of the high labor requirements and costly nature and therefore a constraint especially to women and the elderly. Consequently, increasing IPM practices uptake requires a deliberate and collective effort of key coffee sector stakeholders to design and implement educational programs aimed at judicious application of pesticides. After that, a continuous testing of more IPM techniques coupled with encouraging farmers to adapt and make modifications on the current practices can potentially reduce pesticide use.