Abstract:
The rising challenge of food insecurity occasioned by changing weather patterns, crop
pests, and diseases has inspired research initiatives among scientific communities,
leading to the development of Genetically Modified (GM) food crops. Whilst these
new farming technologies have been adopted in many countries, a polarizing public
debate rages in Kenya regarding the safety of GM foods. There seems to be a lack of
scientific facts informing this debate, begging the question, what is the nature of the
communication of scientific information about GM food crops to the public? This
study aimed to explore the crop scientists‘ communication of GM food information to
maize farmers in Western Kenya and its impact on their attitudes toward GM food
crops. The study sought to answer four research questions: How do the scientists
conceptualise and frame the communication of GM food crop information to the
farmers in Western Kenya? What information is available to farmers in Western
Kenya about GM food crops? How do farmers in Western Kenya access and make
sense of information on GM food crops? How does the accessible information
influence the farmers‘ attitudes toward GM food crops? This study was guided by the
four models of science communication – the deficit, contextual, lay expertise, and
public participation. It adopted a mixed methods approach and a convergent mixed
methods design, concurrently generating and integrating quantitative and qualitative
data. A purposive sampling technique was used to select Uasin Gishu and Trans-
Nzoia counties. Three sub-counties were purposively sampled from each county, and
a systematic random sampling technique was used to sample 298 farmers from the
resulting six sub-counties. The snowball sampling technique was also used to identify
eight key informants from crop scientists researching GM food crops in Kenya. A
semi-structured questionnaire and interview guide were used to collect data from
maize farmers and crop scientists, respectively. The quantitative data were analysed
using descriptive statistical analysis, whereas the qualitative data were thematically
analysed. Findings reveal that crop scientists applied direct and indirect
communication approaches to communicating with farmers to achieve three key
objectives: enhancing farmers‘ awareness and knowledge of GM food crops,
addressing farmers‘ concerns and questions about GM crops, and debunking
misinformation surrounding GM food crops. Farmers were found to have inadequate
knowledge of GM food crops, owing to access to limited and sometimes misleading
information. Farmers access information from multiple sources, often with conflicting
messages, making them skeptical about GM food crops. Findings further revealed that
51% of the farmers often failed to understand the information they accessed, 60.7%
were not satisfied with the amount of the information, whereas 80.2% shared the same
information with others, possibly contributing to further misinformation and
uncertainty among farmers. Nevertheless, the information accessible made farmers
more optimistic (63.1%) than negative about GM food crops. I argue that the negative
perception associated with GM food crops among maize farmers in Kenya is largely
attributed to the scarcity of correct scientific information and the inadequate
engagement between crop scientists and farmers. It is recommended that crop
scientists develop a community engagement framework as a vehicle for sharing
accurate scientific information with farmers and general society to address
misinformation/disinformation associated with the genetic modification of food crops.