Usage of Agricultural Intensification Practices by Smallholder Farmers in Kenyan Rapidly Developing Dry Areas

Abstract

Developing countries, Kenya included are mostly affected by food problems and poverty as a result of high dependence on agriculture. In Kenya agriculture contributes to 27.3% of the Gross Domestic Product. Agriculture in Kenya is dominated by smallholder farmers, whose production is hampered by climate variability, declining land sizes and low agricultural technologies. Agricultural intensification is aimed at solving the problem of low agricultural productivity and poverty through increasing farm output per unit land area. Makueni and Nyando Sub-County were considered as hotspots of climate change by CCAFS. A total of 320 households were sampled from the two sub-counties. From the scope farmers were engaged in 16 agricultural intensification practices, some practices were substitutes others complementary so they were highly correlated. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was then used to group them into clusters called principal components. PCA helped in creating levels of agricultural intensifications. From the results, the number of components (Levels of agricultural intensification) of users was ranging from one to five. That is from low users of strategy 1, partial users of 2, 3 and 4 to full users of 5. The result revealed that 56% of farmers used 5 sets of strategies while 31%, 8%, 3% and 1% of farmers’ used 4, 3, 2 and 1 levels of agricultural intensification practices respectively. The results implied that there was need for smallholder farmers to increase agricultural intensification which leads to improved smallholder farmers livelihood outcomes and helps in building their resilience to harsh climatic conditions.

Keywords: Agricultural intensification practices, Kenya, Principal Component Analysis, Smallholder farmer

DOI: 10.7176/JESD/10-18-04

Publication date:September 30^th 2019