Cowpea production systems and determinants of adopting improved cultivars by farmers across western highlands and Sudano Sahelian zones of Cameroon

Abstract Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata) is an essential crop in tropical Africa with its production facing numerous challenges. Identifying technologies and policies allowing to improve cowpea production are required to confront increasing food insecurity. This study investigated cowpea production systems, identified farming constraints, traits preference and determinants for the adoption of improved cultivars among 300 farmers surveyed across 15 divisions in two distinct agroecological zones of Cameroon. Participatory research through questionnaires and interviews were used to collect data, analysed with IBM SPSS and GraphPad prism softwares. Farmers grow minorly improved varieties (21.66%) compared to landraces (78.44%). These improved varieties are essentially grown in the Sudano-Sahelian zone. Farmers there are mainly males (85%), cultivating on large farm size, using animal traction (74.29%) with higher harvest that are sold. The western highlands zone in contrary is highly characterized by female farmers (98.75%), practicing sole cropping (95.63%) entirely on an area of