Socio-economic and Adminstrative Factors Influencing Adoption of Irrigation Technology in Tharaka Nithi County

Abstract

The importance of irrigation in increasing agricultural productivity in arid and semi arid areas in Kenya cannot be underscored. Tharaka-nithi county is one of the forty seven (47) counties created by the Kenya constitution 2010 that has priotised irrigation tehnology development in her County Development Intergrated Plan 2013-2017. An estimated 80% of the county population is engaged in agricultural activities. The semi-arid (lower zone) covering Tharaka North and South subcounties receives less, erratic and unreliable rainfall for agricultural production. Crop farming is characterized by frequent crop failures especially in the two subcounties. Several efforts and resources from both the government and donor community have been expended in promotion of irrigation technology to increase food production over the years. Despite this investment, adoption levels have remained low and largely unsustainable (Ngigi, 1999). In a bid to explain this gap, this study sought to examine farmers perceptions, attitudes, socio-economic and administrative factors that affect adoption of irrigation technologies in the county. Data for this study was collected through secondary data review of existing information in similar studies and reports, primary data was collected through survey using structured questionnaire, interview with key informants was guided by structured guides and focus groups discussion guides were used for the focus groups. Data was collected between the period of June – July, 2014 across six irrigation groups comprising of both adopters and non adopters. The data was then cleaned, coded and analysed using SPSS descriptive and inferatial statistics, t-tests were carried out to establish correlation coefficient and significance. The results illustrated that age, gender, size of land cultivated, years of residence and education level did not have significant relationship with decision to adopt or not adopt irrigation technology implying that they overally didn’t influence adoption decisions. On the other hand, membership to farmers groups, information access, land tenure and external support had a significant relationship, implying that they really affected farmers decision to adopt or not adopt irrigation technology. Further, the ten socio-economic variables viz; age, sex, marital status, education level, size of land owned, distance to the market, access to credit and external support when taken together were found to be significant in predicting farmer’s adoption of irrigation technology.