Survey data on determinants and barriers to the adoption of improved maize seeds among smallholder farmers in the Katangese Copperbelt

Arsene Mushagalusa Balasha; Angelo Fiore; Mazinga Kwey Michel; Alex Nyumbaiza Tambwe

doi:10.1016/j.dib.2025.111689

Survey data on determinants and barriers to the adoption of improved maize seeds among smallholder farmers in the Katangese Copperbelt

Data Brief. 2025 May 19:61:111689. doi: 10.1016/j.dib.2025.111689. eCollection 2025 Aug.

Authors

Arsene Mushagalusa Balasha¹, Angelo Fiore¹, Mazinga Kwey Michel¹, Alex Nyumbaiza Tambwe²

Affiliations

¹ Agricultural Economics, University of Lubumbashi, PO Box 1825, Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of the Congo.
² Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Lubumbashi, PO Box 1825, Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Abstract

This dataset describes survey data on the drivers and constraints of adopting improved maize varieties among smallholder farmers in the mining region of Haut-Katanga, Democratic Republic of the Congo. The household survey was conducted using a structured questionnaire administered to 300 smallholder farmers randomly selected from villages around Lubumbashi and Kipushi, including the agricultural zone of Sambwa. Information collected from maize farmers includes: (1) demographic profile (gender, age, education, household size); (2) socioeconomic and farm characteristics (land tenure, cropland size, farming experience, financial support, off-farm employment, obstacles to using improved seeds, reasons for using improved seeds, and concerns about climate change); (3) farmers' networks (membership in agricultural associations, Village Savings and Loan Associations, sources of information, and seed supply channels); and (4) farmers' willingness to recommend these seeds to peers and barriers they face in accessing them. The raw data and codebook are available on Mendeley Data. The data will be reused in a detailed article to provide a deeper understanding of the factors and challenges associated with the uptake of agricultural innovations among smallholder farmers in the Katangese Copperbelt.

Keywords: Agricultural innovations; Farmers’ profile; Haut-Katanga; Household survey; Maize improved varieties.