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The Future of Smallholder Farming in Eastern Africa - Uganda ...

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then summed up accord<strong>in</strong>g to <strong>in</strong>creas<strong>in</strong>g levels <strong>of</strong> social capital. This type <strong>of</strong> aggregation<br />

obviously <strong>in</strong>volves strong assumptions about underly<strong>in</strong>g common scales. Yet <strong>in</strong> practice, this<br />

method is commonly used and the result<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong>dicators have proven useful, especially <strong>in</strong> the<br />

context <strong>of</strong> multivariate analysis (Grootaert and van Bastelaer 2002). Cognitive social capital<br />

raises the perception <strong>of</strong> sources <strong>of</strong> possible support and know-how and their potential<br />

reliability, which may f<strong>in</strong>d their way <strong>in</strong>to <strong>in</strong>creased soil conservation <strong>in</strong>vestments.<br />

3.3 Data analysis methods<br />

Two types <strong>of</strong> data analysis, qualitative and econometric, were carried out <strong>in</strong> order to provide<br />

a proper balance. Although some issues emerge from both types <strong>of</strong> analysis, others are only<br />

captured well us<strong>in</strong>g one method <strong>of</strong> analyses or the other. Us<strong>in</strong>g both is likely to yield a<br />

deeper understand<strong>in</strong>g <strong>of</strong> social capital and soil conservation and to <strong>in</strong>form policy design<br />

better.<br />

With qualitative analysis, the basic objective was to map social capital, its<br />

characteristics, and patterns over time. This was achieved through group discussions with<br />

village members, which makes it possible to <strong>in</strong>fer which forms <strong>of</strong> collective action are<br />

successful. Particular attention was given to actions l<strong>in</strong>ked to soil and water conservation. In<br />

particular, the discussions focused on the history <strong>of</strong> terrac<strong>in</strong>g drives <strong>in</strong> the communities, the<br />

proportion <strong>of</strong> villages terraced under collective action, participation rates, collective action<br />

and gender, and farmers’ attitudes toward collective action. F<strong>in</strong>ally, the group’s perceptions<br />

on strengthen<strong>in</strong>g the positive forms <strong>of</strong> social capital and reduc<strong>in</strong>g the negative ones were<br />

sought.<br />

3.4 Specification <strong>of</strong> the empirical models<br />

Before any econometric analysis could be done, descriptive statistics were exam<strong>in</strong>ed with a<br />

view to understand<strong>in</strong>g the distribution <strong>of</strong> the data. Measures <strong>of</strong> central tendencies, box-plots,<br />

cross-tabulations and t-tests were conducted to explore the differences <strong>in</strong> types and amounts<br />

<strong>of</strong> soil conservation <strong>in</strong>vestments among various aspects <strong>of</strong> social capital. <strong>The</strong> econometric<br />

packages used were SPSS and LIMDEP.<br />

Perception <strong>of</strong> soil erosion problem<br />

<strong>The</strong> decision on whether to <strong>in</strong>vest <strong>in</strong> soil conservation measures and the level <strong>of</strong> <strong>in</strong>vestments<br />

depends a great deal on whether a farmer perceives that there is a soil erosion problem or not.<br />

<strong>The</strong> conceptual framework is a model that predicts how a farmer on marg<strong>in</strong>al lands with<br />

given attributes will perceive the problem. <strong>The</strong> Probit model is used to identify the important<br />

factors expla<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g the perception <strong>of</strong> soil erosion problems. <strong>The</strong> general function <strong>of</strong> the<br />

perception model is<br />

PROB ( PERCEP)<br />

= f ( SLOPE,<br />

TENURE,<br />

DISTH,<br />

LCROPAC,<br />

MEDENS,<br />

MEDIV,<br />

PARTIC,<br />

COGNIT,<br />

EDUC,<br />

WEALTH,<br />

SEX , FAROR,<br />

HHS,<br />

FAMCA,<br />

INC,<br />

AGE,<br />

ACCESCOS,<br />

ERODE,<br />

CWORK,<br />

LOC).................................................................(1)

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