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.
