Avocado Households Farmers Decision Making in Southern Highlands of Tanzania: A Case of Njombe Urban

: This article aimed at gaining understanding of avocado farming among household farmers in Tanzania, in particular in Njombe Urban. Specifically, the article assessed on who and how decisions are made in households about farm utilization in general and avocado farming in particular. In methodology, the article adopted a cross-sectional research design with both quantitative and qualitative approach. Data were collected by using questionnaire to 75 smallholder farmers, and in-depth interview to 5 actors of avocado farming (Avo Africa organization). Analysis of the study was done descriptively, whereas frequency and percentage were used, however inferential analysis involved bivariate analysis with chi-square (X 2 ). The qualitative data analysis was done by using content analysis. The study found that decision making made in households for farm utilization is affected by how and who makes decision on income use from avocado farming, plot size for farming, farm activities or tasks and type of crops to be farmed as most decisions are made by Men. The study concluded that decision making on avocado farming in household have a low or unequal level of decision-making on all aspects of avocado growing at the household level. Which leads to bias where mostly decisions are made by men and women are implementers of the decisions made. It is recommended that local government authorities especially sector of agriculture should deliver seminars in local community to emphasize the households to avoid bias in decision making concerning agricultural activities.


Introduction
Horticulture farming has been identified as one of Tanzania's rapidly expanding agricultural subsectors and has the potential to significantly reduce poverty among low-income smallholder households (Malekela, 2022).Fruits, vegetables, ornamental plants, and medicinal plants are all part of horticultural farming (Amao, 2019).There are many distinct avocado kinds farmed around the world, but Hass and Fuerte variants are the most common (Rincon-Patino, Lasso, & Corrales, 2018).Tanzania is a perfect place for avocado cultivation because avocados can also be produced in subtropical climes elsewhere in Africa.After South Africa and Kenya, Tanzania is the third-largest producer of avocados in Africa (Gramzow et al., 2018).Notable avocadoproducing regions in Tanzania include Mbeya, Njombe, Songwe, and Iringa in the southwest and Kilimanjaro, Arusha, and Tanga in the northeast.The National Bureau of Statistics defined a household as "a socio-economic unit

Suggested Citation
Swai, L. & Ubaldus, T. ( 2023).Avocado Households Farmers Decision Making in Southern Highlands of Tanzania: A Case of Njombe Urban.European Journal of Theoretical and Applied Sciences, 1(5), 1363-1371. DOI: 10.59324/ejtas.2023.1(5).1(5).117that consists of one or more persons with common living and catering arrangements" in its survey manual for 2005.These people are typically married or connected by blood, though this is not always the case.Although the household does make everyday decisions, the majority of them are decided by the adult members of the household.Men in Pakistan make the majority of decisions about household well-being, crop patterns, and the marketing of produce, according to (Akhtar, 2018).The same was suggested by (Shibata, 2020), who claimed that men make the majority of family decisions regarding the adoption of new agricultural innovations without consulting their spouses.But their women must ask their husbands' approval first.This study will focus on who makes decisions and how decisions are made by the avocado household farmers in Njombe urban in Tanzania, to see if households make the same decisions as other parts of Tanzania like Morogoro or if the avocado household farmers make different decisions.Since the majority of decisions are made by men, the income earned in the household spending decisions are made by men, and agriculture activities/tasks decisions are divided between man and women as was found in Morogoro Tanzania, This paper is guided by The Family System Theory (Bowen, 1985).The theory highlights that when considering the role of family in society, functionalists uphold the notion that families are an important social institution and they play a key role in stabilizing the society.The theory also describes that the family members perform certain functions that facilitate the prospects and development society.The family teaches young children the ways of thinking and behaving that follow social and cultural norms, values, beliefs, and attitudes.The young children are also taught about gender roles.Gender roles are very essential in economic function in the family.In each family, the division of labor is considered in reflection to instrumental and expressive roles.Men tend to assume the instrumental roles in the family, which typically involve work outside the family that provides financial support to establish family status.
Women tend to assume the expressive roles, which typically involve work inside of the family which provides emotional support and physical care for children (Laff & Ruiz, 2019).This theory is very useful for the current study, the theory provides some views on how gender issues are considered in the household level in economic activities.It highlights how social and cultural norms, values, beliefs, and attitudes may influence people in household either to engage or not engage themselves in economic activities.In this case, this theory helped to explore more about cultural norms factors, beliefs and attitudes which influence households to engage and how to make decision concerning avocado farming in Njombe urban.

Description of the Study Area
Njombe Urban is one of the districts forming Njombe Region located in the Southern Highlands of Tanzania.Njombe Region is bordered to the north by the Iringa Region and Mbeya Region, to the east by Morogoro Region, to the south by the Ruvuma Region and to the west by Lake Nyasa.The Njombe Region has long wet seasons and short dry seasons that are normally cool with mild winds.The annual total rainfall varies widely by geography, season, and year, ranging from 600mm to 1,600mm.A single, distinct wet season lasts from November to May, followed by a cool, dry season from May to September.Temperatures in the area can range from 0°C in May and June to 20°C to 24°C in October and November, depending on height.This type of climate supports avocado farming as well as other commercial and food crops such as tree farming, tea, beans, maize, groundnuts, potatoes, paddy, and sunflowers.In general, the agricultural industry dominates the Njombe Region local economy, accounting for up to 45.2 percent of the Njombe Region economy in 2019.

Research Design and Sampling Procedure
This article employed a cross-sectional research design whereby data were collected once.The main objective was to gain an understanding of who and how decisions are made in households with regard to farm utilization and avocado farming at the time of the survey.A multi-stage sampling technique was employed to select the study participants.First, Njombe Urban was purposely selected because of the presence of a good number of avocado household farmers and traders (Malakela, 2022).Second, Avo Africa, a non-governmental organization working in Njombe Township Council, was purposefully selected because it provides extension services to avocado household farmers and hence a quick and convenient platform to reach the farmers.Then, a probability sampling technique was employed to obtain 75 householder farmers from the list of 400 avocado farmers working with this organization.In addition, a purposive sampling technique was used to get five key informants from the Avo Africa, who were: one manager, two extension officers, and two farm coordinators supporting the farmers, involved in the study.

Data Collection
This article utilized primary data collected through individual in-depth interviews with 80 research participants, out of whom 75 were avocado smallholder farmers and five key informants from Avo Africa organization (one manager, two extension officers, and two farm coordinators).Information collected included the socio-demographic characteristics of avocado smallholder farmers as well as the decision-making process with regard to farm utilization and avocado farming.Specifically, we collected information about who makes the decision regarding farm utilization and farming avocado, the duration of time in avocado farming, the number of hectors owned by avocado farmers, and their average income.The interviews took between 45 and 60 minutes, and they were conducted at a place that was convenient to the respondent.

Data Analysis
In quantitative data analysis, the study employed a descriptive analysis whereas frequencies and percentages were used to generate findings Furthermore, inferential analysis employed a bivariate analysis with a chi-square (X 2 ) to develop the association factor between decisions making in households and avocado farming.Moreover, the corrected value in the chi-square which starts from zero (0) was termed as less influence, while that starts with one (1) was termed as more influence.However the p-value was also involved for statistically significant between variables, the p-value of ≤0.05 was termed as statistically significant, while that of greater that 0.05 was termed as insignificant.
For qualitative information from the key informants, the content analysis approach was used to analyze data.Interviews were tape recorded, transcribed verbatim and translated into English.The process of data analysis was as follows; Translated notes were read and re-read to develop code.The data were arranged by coding the text into resourceful elements manually through categorization of respondents' comments.Then the codes created were arranged into related categories to develop themes.Afterwards themes were reviewed to see if they tally with the data available by comparing the themes with the data.Naming of the themes was done followed by writing up of the analysis of the data.

Socio Demographic Characteristics of Respondents
This study social demographic characteristics of respondents includes age, sex/gender, marital status, educational level and occupation.The results show that about 64 percent of the participants had attained primary school education level, 26.3% had attained secondary school education level, and 10% had attained tertiary level, respectively.Majority of the participants (54%) were aged between 36 and 45 years old.More than half of the participants (51.3%) were males, and the remaining were females.Most of the participants (75%) were married.About half of all respondents (47.5%) were self-employed, followed by (42.5%) unemployed and (10.0%) employed.(Table 1)

Status of Avocado Farming
It includes average income earned by households, their farm size and year they started avocado farming.Results shows that more than half 41(54.7%) of the avocado farmers who participated in this study have an average income of around TZS 3.5 million (USD 1,388) per year.

Decision Making Made in Households about Utilization of Farm for Agricultural Activities
At this part it shows how and who makes decisions in households about utilization of household farm for agricultural activities such as who decides to use income earned and how the income earned from avocado farming is used, farm size, type of crop to be farmed could be determined.

Who Decides to Use Income Earned and How the Income Earned from Avocado Farming is Used in the Household
The results in Table 3 below indicates that among 75 smallholder farmers who participated in this study, more than half 38(58.8%) of them agreed that women have no power to decide on how to use income generated from the avocado farming.
Also, during interview one among respondents stated that: "Most of plot lands for the household are owned by man so all costs of operations in the avocado farming are done by men"

Decision on How to Farm in Terms of Plot Size
The results on how decision of growing avocado is done based on the plot owned by the households.Figure 1 illustrates that among 75 participants of the current study, more than half 45(60.0%)commented that avocado growing is decided to be grown in the large portion of land in the household, followed by 20(26.7%) in medium size of land, and 10(13.3%)small size of land.

Figure 1. How Avocado is Grown in Plot of Land (n=75)
Also, they have contined to grow other crops including food crops like maize, and beans, and cash crops like sunflower.For example, one of interviewees stated that: "Of course, avocado is nowadays taken as an important business, therefore people use their larger parts of land to grow avocado than that land which is left for cash crops and other food crops like maize and beans".
Besides, it was also stated by the interviewee that there are people who were having large lands and those lands were used for tree growing, but currently they have decided to cut their trees and replacing them with avocado.Avocado farming activities or tasks include cultivation, sowing, weeding, fertilizer application, pesticide application, harvesting, processing, storage and marketing.In the interview with the key informants who were extension officers and farm coordinator of Avo Africa, the interviewee highlighted that the tasks of avocado farming in households are share completely only four tasks on more or less equal basis between male and female, and other activities are only done by men "In this society avocado farming activities mostly are done by men but in some extent even women are concerned.Example in cultivating, sowing, weeding fertilizer application, pesticide application and harvesting are done mostly by women although even men can support but when it reaches harvesting time men do engage heavily, also in processing, storage and marketing."

How Decision is Made in Households of Avocado Farming in Terms of Type of Farmed Crops
The results obtained shows that decision making for growing cash crops in the study area is gender dependent.Decision on food production process for household consumption is done by women, however when it comes to cash crops, only men are allowed to make decision concerning resource allocation, market choice, decision to higher labor and task allocation In the interview, one of the interviewees from a category of farm coordinator confirmed that: "Women are always affected by gender issues to participate in avocado farming, in this society, women have been shaped to grow only food crops for households' consumption, when it comes to the matter of cash crops, decision are often done by men".

Discussion
Avocado household farmers do make Decisions in utilization of farm but mostly decisions are made by men and not women.And the income gained from the avocado farming Men decides to use in all costs of farming operation activities The finds implies that women have no power to decide on how to use income generated from avocados farming which means there is a gender-related issue in decision making of income generated from avocado farming.this findings concur with the findings obtained by Loos et al., (2020) that women are affected in participation in different aspects in households, these aspects include lack of decision on purchasing, harvest and use of income generated from crop production.However, this action seems to affect women householder farmers of avocado in the study area, as most of them don't benefit from what they participate in producing which leads them to depend on their men in the households.Also, decision of the plot size in avocado household farmers use large portion of their plot to grow avocado and a small size to grow other crops which implies that avocado household farmers of Njombe urban have put more value to avocado farming compared to other farming like tree growing, this leads them to use larger portion of lands for avocado farming compared to the lands used for growing other crops.The finding in lines with the findings obtained by Bose and Mitra(2016) that avocado farming is performed in a large portion of land for the intention of getting more products for sending to the market to improve the household income.Furthermore, the results show that the avocado farming activities or tasks are decided depending on gender.Activities like harvesting, processing, storage and marketing are mostly done by men and women are left behind.This result Implies that most of women will not be willing to develop their own avocado farms because men will dominate them in some tasks in particular in marketing and it can be because they do not have sufficient information and knowledge about marketing.This findings can be compared to (Smriti,2011) who found that male tasks in the agricultural cycle include clearing fields, ploughing, transplanting and marketing while the most critical operations sowing, weeding, transplanting, harvesting and processing are performed by women.It also aligns with the family theory that says in each family, the division of labor is considered that's why we can see in this households a woman and man have their roles that mostly have to be done by them selfies.
Lastly the avocado household farmers do make decision on type of crop to be farmed.According to the findings decision making for growing cash crops in the study area is gender dependent.It means that Decision on food production process for household consumption is done by women, however when it comes to cash crops, only men are allowed to make decision concerning resource allocation, market choice, decision to higher labor and task allocation.In addition, the findings are similar to findings obtained by Mtenga(2016) who found that women had minor role in decision making of cash crops in Morogoro, Tanzania.Also, the findings concur with the theory of the family system because theory says that In each family, the division of labor is considered in reflection to instrumental and expressive roles and as it is women deal with food crop so as to secure and care the family in terms of food and having a healthy family (expressive role) and men deal with cash crops so as to secure their families in financial matters (instrumental role).

Conclusion
It has been determined that Njombe urban avocado household farmers have a low or unequal level of decision-making on all aspects of avocado growing at the household level.The majority of smallholder farmers in the household especially women do not have the opportunity to influence avocado production decisions or its financial results.In order to minimize bias in decision-making, it is advised that local government officials, particularly those in the agricultural sector, offer seminars that highlight the family or household level.Additionally, connecting with the local community members, especially men, is essential to questioning established gender roles and conventions.Making decisions about agricultural operations in a more equitable manner can be achieved by encouraging communication and cooperation among household members.Achieving gender equality in this sector is not just a matter of justice; it's also a key to unlocking the full potential of avocado farming and ensuring sustainable, prosperous households.It is imperative to act decisively to empower women and pave the way for a more equitable and prosperous future in avocado farming and beyond.