The objectives of this study are to find evidence to what extent farmers still use the technologies that were introduced during the TARPII-SUA programme in Tanzania, and to identify the farmers’ reasons for adopting or rejecting the technologies. The paper indicates that the programme’s projects could, to some extent, be participatory, but the degree of farmer participation may have varied considerably from project to project.

The paper finds that:

• the extent of sustained adoption of TARPII-SUA technologies varies widely
• the main reasons that farmers give for adoption of introduced technologies are substantial improvements of income and food security
• the reasons for rejecting technologies are much more diverse and include failure of the technologies to produce tangible benefits under unfavourable weather conditions, and technologies not being accessible to farmers
• another reason for rejecting technologies is required inputs being too expensive.

Based on its findings, the paper makes the following recommendations:

• the technology should respond to farmers’ priorities
• any introduced variety should have the attributes that farmers prefer
• the project should not raise unrealistic expectations
• the inputs needed to practice the technology should be affordable to farmers
• the outputs of the activity should be readily marketable at attractive prices
• any increase in farmers’ workload should be justified by benefits that are large enough to make the effort worthwhile
• real farmer participation in project identification and planning
• long term involvement in farm development beyond the normal duration of a project
• active involvement of local institutions as well as good leadership of groups that implement on-farm research collectively.

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