Estimating the role of agricultural technologies in improving rural household welfare: a case of Masvingo

To the majority of Zimbabweans, agriculture is a strong option for spurring growth, overcoming poverty, and enhancing food security. More than 90% of Zimbabwe"s rural populace depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. Improving the productivity, profitability and sustainability of smallholder farming is therefore the main pathway out of poverty in using agriculture for development (WDR, 2008). The adoption of new technologies by the rural communities" world over has been found to increase rural livelihoods and food quality. In rural Masvingo many technologies have been adopted in agricultural production, but the major question has remained, has this improved the households" welfare or it has been inadequately utilized and wrongly applied to an extent that no gain in welfare has been recorded? To estimate the impact of technological adoption on household welfare in Masvingo cross-sectional data of 2010 in 560 randomly selected households who responded to the questionnaire was utilised. Using propensity score matching (PSM) we found out that households that adopted new technologies had high consumption expenditures and agricultural income hence technology improves household welfare in Masvingo province.