Factors influencing farmers’ decisions to adopt agro-silviculture in kenya: a case of Kapenguria division, west Pokot county

Abstract

Agro-forestry is a collective name for all land-use systems and practices where woody perennial plants are deliberately grown on the same land management unit as agricultural crops and/or animals, either in spatial mixture or in temporal sequence, while agrosilviculture basically entails combination of crops and trees in the same land management unit. The study investigates the factors that influence farmers’ decision to adopt agrosilviculture Kenya: a case of Kapenguria DivisionWest Pokot County. The guiding objectives of the study were; to determine the influence of land tenure on adoption of agro-silviculture in Kapenguria Division, establish how planting inputs (capital, fertilizer and seeds) influence adoption of agro-silviculture, to establish the influence of gender on adoption of agro-silviculture and finally to investigate the influence of knowledge of benefits of tree planting on adoption of agro-silviculture in Kenya a case of Kapenguria Division West Pokot County. The population of this study dwelt solely on farmers. To add up to a target population of 300 it involved four forest officers, 2 from KVDA and 2 agriculture officers. The study selected a sample size of 169 respondents from the targeted 300 by use of Krejcie and Morgan 1970 table. The study employed simple random sampling in selecting the farmers that participate in this study. Data collection entailed use of questionnaires, interviews and observation and analyzed using descriptive methods. The frequencies and percentages were used in interpreting the respondent’s perception of issues raised in the questionnaires to answer the research questions in table format. The study findings indicated that land tenure, planting inputs, gender and knowledge of benefits influences adoption of silviculture. Most of the residents in study area owned enough piece of land on which they could practice agro-silviculture. The adoption of agro-silviculture was also dependent on the ability of the farmers to procure their planting inputs like fertilizers, seedlings and resistant species. The influence of gender was likely to play a role in the adoption of agro-silviculture. Knowledge of the benefits of agro-silviculture is a motivation towards it adoption. The study recommends that the government should deploy more extension officers to do regular agro-silviculture training to ensure proper land use; increase in capacity building to ensure that farmers access seedlings from government sectors (Kenya Forest Service) and subsidize fertilizers for farmers; national and county government should empower women to enable them increase agro-silviculture practices so as to partake of the benefits of the noble course and finally more campaigns should be held to increase farmers’ knowledge on benefit of agro-silviculture.