Permaculture, Final Capstone Paper 5-26, Hope - Never Ending Food

PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS OF DATA
I. PROFILE OF THE RESPONDENTS
FARMER CHARACTERISTICS
Specific farmer characteristics, with the exception of age, have not typically been useful
in explaining farmers’ decisions to adopt certain agricultural practices (Neill & Lee, 2001).
However, several variables were included in the data collection as explanatory variables. Gender
was measured as the dummy variable 8 female, where 1 was entered if participants are female. As
seen in Table 3, fifteen male participants and 12 female participants were selected from four
regions within Malawi. In Nkhata Bay, all 5 participants were male due to an inability to identify
females who fit the specific criteria for participation. The ages of participants ranged from 23 to
75 years, with a mean of 41.
Religion was measured as a dummy variable, where 1 was equal to identification as
Christian. All but one participant identified themselves as Christians with one participant who
identified as Muslim. The variable married was measured as a dummy variable where 1 is equal
to the participant identifying as being married. Three participants are separated or divorced,
while the remaining 24 are married. All participants indicated financial responsibility for
dependents such as children, ageing parents, and ailing family members and 20 of 27 participants
indicated guardianship for at least one orphan child. This variable, dependents, was measured as
a continuous variable indicating the number of dependents in the household. Excluding
participant 17, who reported responsibility of 26 orphans, the mean of dependents among
participants is 6.
8 Dummy variable refers to the method of quantifying data that does not have quantitative value. Ex. 0 is equal to
male, while 1 is equal to female.
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