Abstract:
Agriculture as the backbone of the Kenya’s economy relies heavily on environmental resources. Therefore, for Kenya to attain the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), environmental conservation must be enhanced through organic farming. This study focused on assessing the factors that limit organic vegetable farming. The study was carried out in Manyatta Constituency, Embu County. A survey research design was used where structured questionnaires were administered to collect data. Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to code and keying the collected data. Descriptive statistics was used to describe the results. The results showed that farmer’s perceptions on organic farming, social-economic factors and environmental factors limited organic vegetable farming in the area of study. The farmers who had negative perceptions on organic vegetable farming did not practice organic vegetable farming while the farmers who had the positive perceptions inorganic vegetable farming practiced it. Socio-economic factors such as inadequate organic market, insufficient organic farm inputs and poor pest and disease control measures limited organic vegetable farming. Some of the farmers had no access to organic farm inputs and this limited their practice on this technology. Environmental factors such as changes in rainfall patterns and soil composition limited organic vegetable farming. Farmers opted to do conventional agriculture which they perceived requires a lot of moisture to dissolve and decompose the organic matter so that the nutrients can be released for the plant absorption. Soil composition also limited organic vegetable farming as some of the soil had poor or high infiltration rates. Nevertheless, majority of the farmers advocated in this type of farming technique in the area
