Household-level determinants of adoption of improved natural resources management practices among smallholder farmers in western Kenya

Marenya, Paswel; Barrett, Chris

doi:10.1016/j.foodpol.2006.10.002

Cited by 360 publications

(278 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…On the other hand, natural resource constraints hinder households ability to secure food (cf. Marenya and Barrett 2007;Mazzucato et al 2001;Shiferaw et al 2009) and the ability to save money to acquire inputs (Di Falco et al 2011). …”

Section: Crop-related Adaptation Practicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thus, a policy to support investment in institutions (such as the banks) may stimulate households to save and access credit and enhance their ability to adapt. The negative relationship between group membership and participation in group activities and income diversification may be explained by the time spent in group meetings and activities which reduces the time required to pursue other activities (Marenya and Barrett 2007). This suggests that policies aimed at encouraging informal social networks (financially or materially) may facilitate the flow of information and coordination of activities much more efficiently, thereby boosting household AC.…”

Section: Income Diversificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Amsalu and De Graaff 2007;Bekele and Drake 2003;Di Falco et al 2011;Marenya and Barrett 2007). Financial savings enhance households' capacity to adopt livestock-related adaptation practices, for example, by enabling them to buy food (or other social amenities) when migrating or looking for pastures .…”

Section: Livestock-related Adaptation Practicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Adaptation of agriculture to climate change in semi-arid Borena, Ethiopia

Ng’ang’a

Wijk

Rufino³

2016

Reg Environ Change

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Livestock production is very risky due to climate variability in semi-arid Sub-Saharan Africa. Using data collected from 400 households in the Borena zone of the Oromia Region, we explored what drives adoption of agricultural practices that can decrease the vulnerability of agro-pastoralists to climate change. Households with more adaptive capacity adopted a larger number of practices. The households' adaptive capacity was stronger when the quality of local institutions was high. However, adaptive capacity had less explanatory power in explaining adoption of adaptation options than household socio-economic characteristics, suggesting that aggregating information into one indicator of adaptive capacity for site-specific studies may not help to explain the adoption behaviour of households. Strong local institutions lead to changes in key household-level characteristics (like membership to community groups, years lived in a village, access to credit, financial savings and crop income) which positively affect adoption of agricultural practices. In addition, better local institutions were also positively related to adoption of livestock-related adaptation practices. Poor access to a tarmac road was positively related to intensification and diversification of crop production, whereas it was negatively related to the intensification of livestock production, an important activity for generating cash in the region. Our findings suggest that better local institutions lead to changes in household characteristics, which positively affect adoption of adaptation practices, suggesting that policies should aim to strengthen local institutions.

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Section: Crop-related Adaptation Practicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Income Diversificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Adaptation of agriculture to climate change in semi-arid Borena, Ethiopia

Ng’ang’a

Wijk

Rufino³

2016

Reg Environ Change

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“…Women in Ethiopia play important roles in livestock production such as cattle feeding, barn cleaning, calf rearing, milk handling and marketing; however, they are often locked out of land ownership, access to productive farm inputs and support from extension services. These challenges mean that, on average, female farmers produce less per hectare than men, which adversely affects LWP (Marenya and Barrett, 2007). Therefore, the gender of the household head being female could be negatively associated with LWP.…”

Section: Description Of Factors Explaining the Variation In Lwpmentioning

confidence: 99%

Strategies for improving water use efficiency of livestock production in rain-fed systems

Kebebe

Oosting

Haileslassie

et al. 2015

Animal

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Livestock production is a major consumer of fresh water, and the influence of livestock production on global fresh water resources is increasing because of the growing demand for livestock products. Increasing water use efficiency of livestock production, therefore, can contribute to the overall water use efficiency of agriculture. Previous studies have reported significant variation in livestock water productivity (LWP) within and among farming systems. Underlying causes of this variation in LWP require further investigation. The objective of this paper was to identify the factors that explain the variation in LWP within and among farming systems in Ethiopia. We quantified LWP for various farms in mixed-crop livestock systems and explored the effect of household demographic characteristics and farm assets on LWP using ANOVA and multilevel mixed-effect linear regression. We focused on water used to cultivate feeds on privately owned agricultural lands. There was a difference in LWP among farming systems and wealth categories. Better-off households followed by medium households had the highest LWP, whereas poor households had the lowest LWP. The variation in LWP among wealth categories could be explained by the differences in the ownership of livestock and availability of family labor. Regression results showed that the age of the household head, the size of the livestock holding and availability of family labor affected LWP positively. The results suggest that water use efficiency could be improved by alleviating resource constraints such as access to farm labor and livestock assets, oxen in particular.Keywords: mixed-crop livestock systems, livestock feed, water use efficiency, livestock water productivity ImplicationsLivestock production is one of the major consumers of fresh water, and the influence of livestock production on water resources is increasing because of the growing demand for livestock products. The results suggest that water use efficiency could be improved by alleviating resource constraints such as access to farm labor and livestock assets, oxen in particular. The findings of this research help in making decisions about where to invest scarce resources in order to improve water use efficiency in livestock production under rain-fed conditions.

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“…Different factors, ranging from biophysical characteristics to socio-economic farm-household characteristics and institutional factors have been investigated for their influence on technology adoption. The most important factors limiting the uptake of new agricultural technologies includes: risk and uncertainty, knowledge and education, profitability, input availability, credit constraints, tenure security, labor availability, biophysical factors, market incentives and social networks (Marenya & Barrett, 2007;Kassie et al, 2009;Conley & Udry, 2010;Teklewold et al, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Disadoption of Improved Agronomic practices in Cowpea and Maize at Ejura-Sekyeredumase and Atebubu-Amantin Districts in Ghana

Acheampong¹,

Bonsu²,

Omae³

et al. 2016

SAR

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The improved cowpea and maize production methods developed in Ghana with the help of farmers are fundamental to increasing cowpea and maize productivity. Improved agronomic practices in cowpea and maize production believed to increase yield are row planting, the use of cover crops and the use of poultry manure. However, the practices are gradually losing their importance in cowpea and maize production. The paper therefore explores the extent to which various factors affect the disadoption of improved agronomic practices and reasons behind disadoption. Multistage sampling techniques were used to select hundred farmers from two cowpea and maize producing areas. Results revealed adoption of cover crops, row planting, poultry manure dropped from 13% to 6%, 99% to 53% and 77% to 10%, respectively. Financial constraint, difficulty in use, time and labour intensity were reasons for disadoption. Empirical results revealed that number of years in education, gender of farm household head, household size, access to extension and hired labour influenced disadoption of improved agronomic practices. Access to production inputs and continuous supply of information are important for farmers' continuous use of improved agricultural technologies.

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Household-level determinants of adoption of improved natural resources management practices among smallholder farmers in western Kenya

Cited by 360 publications

References 32 publications

Adaptation of agriculture to climate change in semi-arid Borena, Ethiopia

Adaptation of agriculture to climate change in semi-arid Borena, Ethiopia

Strategies for improving water use efficiency of livestock production in rain-fed systems

Disadoption of Improved Agronomic practices in Cowpea and Maize at Ejura-Sekyeredumase and Atebubu-Amantin Districts in Ghana

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