Call for Papers : Volume 11, Issue 04, April 2024, Open Access; Impact Factor; Peer Reviewed Journal; Fast Publication

Farmer’s perception on the effectiveness and sustainability of disseminated agricultural technologies through farmer groups approach in kisii county, kenya

Hunger and extreme poverty has been of great concern in both developed and developing countries in the world. This challenge has been aggravated by various factors including social-economic factor consisting of the networks by which the local people shares information amongst them and technical factors which are shaped by extension service providers to enhance modern agricultural technologies. Over the years various agricultural extension approaches have been employed to improve the dissemination of agricultural technologies these include Focal Area Shifting Approach, Farmer Field Schools, Farmers Participatory Research, Farmers Research Committees, Participatory Rapid Appraisal, Participatory Learning and Action, National Accelerated Agricultural Inputs Access Programme, and Njaa Marufuku Kenya. The purpose of this study was to determine farmer’s perceptions on the effectiveness and sustainability of using supported farmer groups in disseminating agricultural technology. Multistage and purposive sampling techniques were used to obtain a sample of 351 respondents from a target population of 3,678 farmers from 47 identified farmer groups across the county. Structured questionnaires were used to collect data which was later coded and subjected to Statistical Package for Social Sciences software and Microsoft Excel for analysis. The findings revealed that majority of the respondents were female at 62.5% and majority of the respondents had primary level of education at 54.4%. The study established that farmer’s perceptions on dissemination of agricultural technologies through supported farmers group approach was effectiveness and sustainable at 96.4% and 66.7% respectively. It is recommended that, there should be continuous vigorous capacity building to empower members in funded groups in the implementation of their respective projects; more enhanced community participation, financial support and full utilization of the purchased technologies and farm inputs. Also the components of supported farmer groups should be further strengthened and adopted so that their impact can be reflected more strongly in disseminating agricultural technology.

Author: 
Nathan Soire, Samson Maobe, Evans Basweti and Samson Makone
Download PDF: