The high rates of urbanization and environmental degradation caused in the last decade have negatively impacted on the quality and quantity of food production.Besides the above challenges, there is a problem of nutrient depleted soils and water scarcity across the globe and these are expected to exacerbate in the face of the increasing population especially in urban areas.Traditional farming is generally faced with problems of weather changes, water pollution, soil degradation and soil infertility.Africa alone continues to fight the problem of food insecurity where improved yield and sustainability in the agriculture sector can best be achieved through climate smart agriculture.CSA has been defined as an intervention vital for maintainace of global food security and nutrition through changing and readjusting agricultural practices within the new era of climate change.In order to conserve sustainable crop production systems, there is need to utilize spaces like: non-arable fields that do not support crop cultivation and develop alternative cultivation methods.This justifies the increasing use of various smart agricultural technologies to meet these rising levels of food insecurity.Emami et al.described smart agriculture as the use of technology that has the capability to increase food security if well streamlined to the domestic levels.On other hand, CSA synchronizes actions by researchers, policy maker, private institutions, societies and farmers to promote climate resilient systems, practices and technologies.Arshad Mahmood et al.described hydroponics as an agriculture system for growing crops in water composed of mineral nutrients supported by medium.This system which uses less water as compared to soil farming has successfully been used for cultivation of different vegetables like: lettuce, spinach, cucumbers,hydroponic dutch buckets tomatoes among other crops as these respond well to hydroponics due to low nutrient demands and short growth period.
New drifts in agriculture have shown hydroponics as one of the new innovative soilless farming systems to realize satisfactory outcomes and has the potential to produce more yields in minimal space and promote food security through production of food vertically thus should be considered as a better farming option for East Africa facing a quandary of challenges as earlier discussed.Hydroponic farming has different types which include: Nutrient Film Technique , Wick system, Drip system, Ebb and Flow and Deep water culture.Wick system is the simplest hydroponic method which uses wicks to draw nutrients from the reservoir without use of pumps or timer while NFT hydroponics is a method where shallow channels are used to supply the nutrient solution to the bare plant roots through re-circulation process.DWC is a method of hydroponics in which plant roots are suspended directly into the nutrient rich water solution while drip system uses micro emitters to drip the nutrient and water directly to the plant roots with the help of a pump.Ebb and Flow involves flooding the plant tray with the nutrient solution using a pump that is connected to the solution tank at given time intervals with the use of a timer.The solution is later drained back to the nutrient tank.Adoption of hydroponics in East African countries like: Uganda and Tanzania, where this technology might offer a profitable agri-business and food security solution for urban dwellers by tapping into the growing demand for local produce, is still very low.The potential of hydroponic farming in these developing countries hasn’t yet been fully established.It is likely to be more complicated to provide sufficient food for the fast-growing population using traditional agriculture in future, therefore soil-less cultivation is the right substitute technology to adapt effectively.There has also been a lot of attention given to urban agriculture among researchers, scientists and the general public which calls for more attention into hydroponics as it is considered an urban farming technology.Based on the impasse of challenges presented by conventional farming practices, urbanization and the increasing urban population as well as the ability of hydroponics to tackle these challenges, this study focused on examining the status and perception of soilless farming in Central Uganda and Northern Tanzania as an alternative sustainable cropping system to increasing food security and agdribusiness opportunities around urban and peri-urban areas.
Focus was specifically put on a couple of influential factors majorly socio-economic and agricultural factors surrounding the urban and semi-urban farmers and farms practicing hydroponics in these countries.The study assessed and categorized the benefits, challenges and recommendations for enhancing the implementation of this technology.It focused specifically on vegetable production because research has shown vegetables to be one of the most easy-to-cultivate crops under hydroponics as earlier mentioned.The study was carried out in the months of April-July 2021 in the urban and periurban areas of Meru district located in Northern Tanzania and Wakiso district located in Central Uganda.Tanzania and Uganda are both located in East Africa and experience tropical climate conditions.Tanzania has an estimated population of 58 million while Uganda has approximately 44 million people.Northern Tanzania was selected as study site because it is one of the vegetable growing hot spots in the country and also has a couple of large hydroponic farms in the country while the Central Uganda was selected because it has majority of the urban and periurban farmers engaging in soilless farming.A total of 150 farmers/firms/farms were identified using snowball sampling through farmers groups and recommendations from expert farmers and agricultural bodies.Only 51 participants who practice vegetable production soilless farming technology majorly hydroponics around urban and periurban areas took part in the study.These participants included both farm owners of the hydroponic vegetable farms that as well as managers of firms that produce vegetables using hydroponics for either seed production or vegetables for sale.A pre-tested semi-structured questionnaire using both closed and open-ended questions was designed to capture socio-economic and agricultural factors related to hydroponic farming as well as the benefits and challenges faced by the farmers and farms at large.Socio-economic factors included: age, gender, education level, labor used at the farm, whether the farmer received financial support to implement the technology or not, market for the hydroponic produce and if hydroponics is the main economic activity engaged in by the farmer.
The agricultural factors captured included: vegetables grown, type of hydroponic system used, medium used, size of land used, planters used to grow the crops, kind of fertilizer used, and the environmental setting used to grow the hydroponic crops.Furthermore, it also included questions to capture information on benefits and challenges of using soilless farming as well as the recommendations that can be put in place to enhance the adoption of the technology.Based on the COVID-19 challenges and restrictions, the questionnaire was designed and answered using Google forms and face-face interviews with key informants especially with companies that were engaging in seed production using soilless farming.Due to the limited sample size, data collected was coded and summarized into frequencies using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 26.0 and presented using tables and graphs.Previous research has pointed out hydroponic farming to have a number of benefits as compared to other traditional farming system.Hydroponic in general promotes environmentally friendly measures with the ability for improved commercial food production and perform better than traditional open field farms.One of its advantage is the production of good quality crops.Approximately 24% of the farmers recognized this advantage stating that hydroponic vegetables are clean with good color, taste, uniformity in texture and size, and pesticide residue free.Results from a study in Trinidad similarly reported a high willingness to pay greenhouse-“hydroponic tomatoes” compared to “open-field” tomatoes based on being free of pesticides.Hydroponically grown crops have more mineral composition than soil grown plants.About26% of respondents also reported hydroponics to be a CSA system that is not dependant on weather conditions and also environmentally friendly which aspect was also pointed out by Zhigang and Qinchao.Farmers established that hydroponic food production is not dependant on rainfall seasons and neither does existence of drought conditions deter an individual from cultivation hence offers an opportunity for all year crop production.24% of the respondents noted that hydroponics allows production of high harvests within a small space or areas with unfertile soils through vertical farming as compared to the ancient farming system where farmers need huge chunks of fertile land to get big harvests.This makes it a very suitable urban farming system in areas faced with scarcity of arable land.Gholamreza et al.similarly noted that hydroponics gives the opportunity to grow crops in non-arable areas.This farming system can take place in areas with non-fertile soils and can be implemented using vertical farming which increases crop production per unit area through vertical crop cultivation means.Another advantage noted by approximately 20% of the participants was the absence of soil borne pests and diseases with the farming system as compared to soil farming.
The controlled nature of the environment setting for hydroponics, no use of soil for cultivation,bato bucket use of insect traps for both indoor and outdoor systems all play huge roles in dettering pests like white flies hence reducing use of pesticidies.Richard, Charles reported that soilless faming has the benefit of restricted occurrence of pests and diseases.The use of soilless farming gives a unique chance for controlled environment seed production with limited pests and diseases.Approximately 4% reported having control over the environment of the vegetables through monitoring climatic and environmental conditions such as: temperature, Electrical Conductivity , pH and humidity, majorly those who were cultivating under fully automated green houses.With hydroponic farming, there is control over the climatic conditions within the greenhouse environment.Other advantages for hydroponic farming noted by about 4% of the farmers were: no weeding is required, source of income from sale of vegetables and training other farmers, provides supply of fresh vegetables, require little attention during growth and production of surplus food for home consumption.Fig.5att link=”no” categorizes the advantages of hydroponic farming within Tanzania and Uganda.Rice is one of the most important crops for food security and rural livelihoods in many developing countries, especially in the Southeast Asia region.Rice farming plays a crucial role in income generation and ensuring food security for millions of rice farmers in Southeast Asian countries and contributes to food security at the global level through rice export.However, the current rice farming practices heavily rely on synthetic fertilizers and pesticides for higher productivity through improving soil health and preventing damages caused by crop pests and diseases.
Synthetic fertilizers and pesticides are the inputs that farmers cannot self-produce and have to rely on purchase, and the expenses on these inputs usually account for a high proportion of production costs.Therefore, overuse of these inputs lowers rice production efficiency and income from rice farming.Furthermore, overusing chemical inputs poses a major threat to agricultural sustainability , negatively affecting both underground and surface water, and creating eutrophication and losses of biodiversity.Empirical evidence for explaining the overuse or inappropriate application of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides points out several factors such as farmers’ lack of knowledge about optimal levels of input use, significant influence of input suppliers, weak management from authorities, and risk aversion under uncertainties caused by fake products, asymmetric market information of inputs, soil quality, pests and diseases, and climatic variability.For instance, Feder reported that a lack of information about the degree of pest infestation and pesticide’ effectiveness was driving risk-averse farmers to apply more pesticides to reduce the impact of risks.Supporting this finding, Khor et al.indicated that the fear of low-quality fertilizers might be an uncertainty encouraging farmers to apply more fertilizers.Under risk aversion, these uncertainties become significant determinants of fertilizer and pesticide use.Hence, examining the influence of risk attitude in uncertain contexts on the application of fertilizers and pesticides deserves attention.Rural households in developing countries live in a vulnerable context , frequently facing different types of shocks such as weather shocks and crop pests/diseases.These shocks create uncertainties that influence farmers to use more/less inputs.For instance, frequent weather shocks such as floods, landslides, and storms might, on the one hand, discourage rural households from applying an adequate amount of inputs because of their fear of losses.On the other hand, droughts might indirectly and adversely affect systemic insecticides’ performance that leads to an increase in pesticide use.Consequently, farmers might disregard recommended optimal input application rates in the context of uncertainties.Unfortunately, a limited number of studies account for these shocks in examining the relationship between farmers’ risk attitude and input application.