Adoption of Selected Climate Smart Agriculture Technologies among Smallholder Farmers in Lower Eastern Kenya

Abstract

Climate change has greatly affected food production and food security. Erratic temperature rises and inconsistent precipitation have greatly influenced productivity of crops and livestock. The impacts have gotten much more pronounced among small scale farmers in Kenya whose farming activities are climate reliant. As a component of climate change adaptation, selecting suitable climate smart agriculture (CSA) technologies that can alleviate these adverse consequences is critical. The study sought to determine the factors affecting adoption of selected climate smart agriculture technologies among smallholder farmers in Lower Eastern Kenya, comprising of Machakos, Kitui and Makueni Counties. A sample of 384 households was obtained using multi-stage sampling procedure. A semi-structured questionnaire designed in an open data kit (ODK) application was used to collect primary data from the sampled smallholder farmers. The main adaptation technologies considered were mixed farming, intercropping, crop rotation, conservation agriculture, agroforestry, crop diversification and water harvesting, in that order. Descriptive statistics (frequency and percentages) were used to analyze socio-economic characteristics. Findings revealed that 54.2% of the respondents were males and 35.7% in their productive years (36-50 years). In addition, the findings revealed that most of the interviewed farmers (97.4%) had observed climate change and the effect on food production. Results of the multinomial regression on socio-economic and climate information pathways revealed a positive impact of gender and education level on uptake of crop rotation (0.7%), agroforestry (0.9%) and crop diversification (0.4%) while reliance on mobile phones (0.9%) and neighbors/friends (0.2%) reduced adoption of water harvesting. Multivariate probit model was employed to analyze socio-economic and institutional factors influencing adoption. The likelihood of adopting mixed farming, intercropping and crop rotation significantly increased (p<0.05) among male-headed households and having adequate access to off-farm income and credit facilities. Further, a Food Consumption Score (FCS) was employed to compare quantity and quality of food consumed among households across the three counties. Kitui County had the highest poor FCS at 80% due to lack of adequate knowledge on proper use of the technology than was the case in Kitui (72.5%) and Makueni (73%) Counties. This study therefore recommends promoting adoption of the disseminated CSA technologies, providing reliable extension services plus accessibility to other essential services, like, fertilizer and seeds markets for realizing increased agricultural production in Lower Eastern Kenya.