Open AccessLinks between Farmers’ Socio-demographics and Adoption of Soil Conservation Technologies in Hilly Terrains of Nandi County, Kenya
Author(s) -
Joseph Kipkorir Cheruiyot
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
journal of agriculture and ecology research international
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2394-1073
DOI - 10.9734/jaeri/2020/v21i530143
Subject(s) - descriptive statistics , soil conservation , residence , geography , socioeconomics , demographics , psychological intervention , nonprobability sampling , productivity , agricultural science , mathematics , economic growth , economics , agriculture , environmental science , psychology , sociology , population , demography , statistics , archaeology , psychiatry
Smallholder farms in Kenya continue to suffer from crop-productivity declines due to loss of soil quality as a result of soil erosion among other factors. Low adoption of soil conservation technologies persists in spite of previous interventions. This study was conducted to investigate links between farmers’ socio-demographic factors and the adoption of soil conservation technologies. The study adopted a descriptive cross-sectional survey design. Purposive and multi-stage random sampling techniques were used to select a sample of 150 farmers from six catchment areas of the hilly terrain of Tinderet in Nandi County, Kenya. A total of 138 participants were accessed. Questionnaires administered by enumerators were used to collect data. Data was analysed to generate descriptive statistics. Kendall-Stuart Tau-c and Goodman-Kruskal’s gamma were used to estimate correlations between socio-demographic factors and adoption. Age, Gender, duration of residence and farm size were not significantly associated with adoption (P > 0.05).Education levels, household size, level of awareness and income were positively associated with adoption (Gamma =.359, P = .034), (Gamma = .229, P = .088), (Gamma = .485, P = .000) and (Gamma = .282, P = .042) respectively. It is recommended that stakeholders address soil erosion problems through farmers’ capacity-building, particularly for low-income farmers.