Non Farm Occupation And Farm Innovation In Marginal, Medium And High Potential Regions Of Eastern Kenya And Buganda

Abstract

The study reported here tests the hypothesis that an increasing level of farm adoption score leads to a decrease in non-farm occupation score for the farm. The basic assumption concomitant to this hypothesis is that an increasing level of farm operations would lead to full-time occupation of the available farm labour on farm tasks, and lead to a decrease in non-farm task allocation for the same farm labour. The study involved observations on the two major variables in three diverse farming regions to maximize variations on the independent variables. The results of the study showed that the hypothesis was rejected for the lower potential areas but not for the high potential zone. They also showed a very clear sexual division of labour on non-farm tasks which becomes dramatized in food shortage and famine crises. The implications of these findings are that the uncritical 'farm fixation' approach to rural change ought to be re-examined to take account of inter-regional variations in developmental and non-farm resource exploitation potential. The extension agent saturation approach is criticized on the basis of inadequate technological packages for different farming areas. The role of women is shown to be critical and it is argued that women should be included in running rural co-operatives, and in all training and extension contacts.