Adoption of banana tissue culture in Uganda still remains low despite the availability of policies geared to enhancing agriculture. A survey was carried out on 115 smallholder farmers in Central Uganda to establish the influence of agro-related policies in tissue culture banana adoption between January and July 2018. Results from the study indicated that 83.8% of the respondents were aware about the Plan for Modernization of Agriculture policy as compared to National Agricultural Policy (5.5%), National Development Plan (13.12%) and Agricultural Sector Development Strategy and Investment Plan (3.3%). Age, gender and education level all exhibited weak correlations in relation to policy awareness while generally, the study found out that awareness of the of the policies did not significantly influence farmer’s adoption of tissue culture banana in central Uganda (P>0.05). We conclude that most of the agro-related polices were on paper and minimal efforts were in place to enhance their awareness amongst small holder farmers. We therefore recommend that increased awareness of agro-related policies to the farmers as well as integration of farmer interests in policy formulation are paramount in order to achieve wide uptake of agro-technologies like banana tissue culture.

Uptake of improved agricultural technologies like banana tissue culture still remains low despite the efforts that have been put in place to enhance its adoption. A survey was carried out on 115 smallholder farmers in central Uganda to establish the influence of various socio-economic factors on the adoption of tissue culture banana between January and July 2018. Findings from the study revealed that respondents’ main occupation (P = 0.028), market accessibility (P = 0.006) and proximity to the source of planting materials (P = 0.000) were the major drivers to adoption of tissue culture banana. The study thus recommended the establishment of regional distribution centres for tissue culture banana plantlets, increased investment in extension in order to strengthen the farmer-researcher linkage and increased market access.