Analysis of factors influencing the adoption of Agroforestry Technology among smallholder farmers in Bumula sub-county Bungoma County, Kenya

Abstract

Agroforestry is considered as a direct link to poverty alleviation and livelihood improvement. There is need for promotion and adoption of modern farming technologies to increase agricultural productivity, improve fodder, fuel wood availability and farm incomes. This study analysed the demographic factors that influence the adoption of agroforestry technology among small-holder farmers in Bumula Sub-County. Smallholder farmers in this region have been facing challenges of low and declining soil fertility reflected in low agricultural production, fodder and fuel wood shortages and low incomes from farming activities, which has caused widespread among over half of the households. The study carried out in Bumula Sub-County applied field survey. Data was collected from a sample of 751 small scale farmers using structured and semi-structured questionnaires. The target population was 18580 smallholder farmers in Bumula Sub-County. Simple random sampling procedure followed by systematic sampling was used to identify the respondents. The theory underpinning this study was the Theory of adoption. To ensure the results quality, logit model was adopted. The collected data was analysed using STATA software. Results from the study showed that institutional factors such as access to extension services, belonging to a farmer group and access to market influenced the adoption of agroforestry technology with (p-values 0.000<0.05), (p-values 0.011<0.05), and(p-values 0.000<0.05) respectively. Economic factors such as Land size, cost of technology, tree planting materials and farm income positively influenced the adoption of agroforestry technology in Bumula sub-County with p-values (p-values 0.000<0.05), (p-values 0.000<0.05) and (p-values 0.008<0.05) respectively. It is concluded that access to extension services, belonging to a farmer group, access to market, Land size, cost of technology, tree planting materials and farm income influenced the adoption of agroforestry technology in Bumula Sub-county. It was recommended that the Government and other stakeholders should enhance farmers’ knowledge and literacy through extension education so as to improve adoption levels of agroforestry technology. There is need for government to provide marketing facilities to small scale agroforestry farmers. This could be done by construction of agroforestry processing facilities at village level to enable farmers to supply their products directly to the market and avoid selling through brokers.