Getting Technologies into Use: Adoption of “Climate-Smart Practices”

in Nyando, Kenya

Food Security in a World of Changing Climate and Natural Resource Scarcity: The Role of Agricultural Technologies

February 12, 2014

Ruth Meinzen-Dick

Photo: K. Trautmann

• Production Systems in Nyando:– Maize– Sorghum– Sugarcane– Local, crossbreed, and dairy

livestock• Largely subsistence farms• Challenges:

– Soil erosion, declining soil fertility, drought stress, and flooding

– High poverty rates, labor shortages, low productivity, and poor health/nutritional status

Who is using Climate-Smart Practices?

Photos K. Troutmann, V. Atakos, K. Troutmann

• Despite years of promotion, low adoption of agroforestry

• Relatively high adoption of high yield varieties, but extremely low for stress tolerant

Low Adoption of CSA practices….

Photo: K. Troutmann

• Extension and promotion efforts not reaching all respondents

• Gender is often a significant variable for awareness

• Other factors affecting awareness: education, spousal awareness, innovative/traditional motivations, access to different sources of information

But, Adoption starts with Awareness

Photo: K. Troutmann

• After accounting for awareness, does not seem that gender itself is a constraint

• Other variables considered: impacts of shocks, female decision making, tenure security, coordination, access to weather forecasting, access to credit

• No single clear story of what increases adoption

Do Women Adopt Less than Men?

Adoption: More than an Individual Decision

Time

Short Long

Space

Farm

Com-munity

Nation

Property Rights

Coordination

State

Colle

ctive

Ac

tion

Forests

Watershed management

Terracing

New seeds AgroforestrySoil Carbon

Integrated Pest Management

Irrigation

Seed Systems

Group

• It’s complicated and depends on the technologies

• Role of credit, information sources, land tenure, collective action

• Past experiences suggest that many institutional variables are important

CSA Adoption and Awareness in Nyando

Photos: K. Troutmann

Conclusions

Technology adoption depends on context: social and institutional, not just biophysicalNeed to continue paying attention to effective and efficient ways of reaching farmers (women as well as men) and to encourage the adoption of these technologies

Photos: V. Atakos