Adoption of climate resilient agricultural practices among the Giriama community in South East Kenya: implications for conceptual frameworks

Abstract

While quantitative studies are robust at assessing the extent of climate change adaptation, and statistical relationships among variables involved, qualitative studies are also essential to understand the social rationales underlying relationships among variables, and to identify the roles of variables that have been overlooked or are hard to measure. This study investigates factors that influence the adoption of climate resilient agricultural practices by resource-poor Giriama farmers in southeast Kenya, with a view to understanding why some smallholders from this cultural group adopt climate resilient practices, while others do not. Data was collected through in-depth interviews with 30 farmers, 15 of whom had adopted climate resilient farming practices recommended by agricultural experts, and 15 of whom had not adopted any of those practices. The adopters were market-oriented, and tended to have individual land tenure, higher levels of experience in farming, slightly larger farm sizes, middle to high school education levels, and be younger. They had access to agricultural extension, access to farm inputs, and their off-farm activities tended to be related to agricultural supply chains. Non-adopters farmed entirely for subsistence, on communal or leased land, had less formal education, and adhered strongly to cultural beliefs and practices. Their off-farm income was unrelated to agriculture. More of the adopters were males, while many of the non-adopters were female. Particular cultural practices and taboos inhibited the adoption of several of the climate resilient practices, such as planting hybrid maize, keeping dairy goats, using improved goats such as the Kenyan Alpine for breeding purposes and the use of water conservation structures for crop production. Further, the qualitative information explains how and why factors such as land ownership, gender, culture, and access to information are interrelated, in ways that are not necessarily obvious in statistical analysis. The study thus highlights issues that need to be considered in conceptual frameworks underpinning both quantitative and qualitative studies, and particularly how they interact, in order to provide the knowledge essential to policy and programs intended to enhance smallholder farmers' adaptive capacity.

Knowledge Evaluation on Weather Forecast and Agro-advisory Services to Farmers in Srikakulam District of Andhra Pradesh, India

“…Hence it is clearly indicated that education plays an important role in receiving knowledge to check weather forecast to make proper decisions on farm operations. Finally from the above two factors it has been clearly observed that, age and education influenced the farmers to know the proper technologies which are suitable in the changing weather conditions and accordingly helped the farmers to follow suitable management practices and adopt proper technology [8].…”

Reimagining nutrition education for pregnant adolescents in the face of climate change: a community approach

“…A recent study done among resource-poor Giriama farmers in South East Kenya showed that water conservation structures such as retention ditches and Zai-pits (small basins in which the seeds are planted) were well accepted by the community. 28 Challenges, such as the high cost of labour for the establishment of such structures, could be faced by local support from the village leader. In many African countries, trust in community leaders is much higher than in elected government officials or donor organisations, which potentially facilitates effective leadership and establishing collaboration in the community to put up water structures or share essential nutrients.…”

Exploring farmers’ communication pattern and satisfaction regarding the adoption of Agromet advisory services in semi-arid regions of southern India

“…It has been observed that seasonal climate projections have shown potential for informing agricultural decisions, but the actual adoption of climate information by farmers has been relatively slow and limited (Goddard et al, 2010;Lemos and Rood, 2010). Furthermore, studies have revealed that low adoption of weather-based advisories is also interlinked with the limited uptake of climate-resilient agricultural technologies (Ziro et al, 2023).…”