Abstract
The environmental effects of climate change have significantly decreased agricultural productivity. Agroforestry technologies have been applied as a solution to promote sustainable agricultural systems. This study evaluates the factors influencing the adoption of agroforestry technology in Kenya. A multistage sampling technique was employed to collect data from 239 households in West Pokot County, Kenya. A Probit model and K-means algorithm were used to analyze the factors affecting farmers’ agroforestry technology adoption decisions based on the sampled households’ socio-economic, demographic, and farm characteristics. The study found that the total yield for maize crop, farm size, extension frequency, off-farm income, access to training, access to credit, access to transport facilities, group membership, access to market, gender, distance to nearest trading center, and household education level had significant effects on the adoption of agroforestry technologies. The findings of this study are important in informing policy formulation and implementation that promotes agroforestry technologies adoption.
Highlights
The economy of most sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries greatly depends on agricultural production
Continuous variables are expressed in the form of the mean and standard deviation while categorical variables are expressed in percentages
The results indicated that total yield, farm size, extension frequency, off-farm income, access to training, access to credit, access to transport facilities, group membership, access to market, gender, distance to nearest trading center, and household education level had significant effects on the adoption of
Summary
The economy of most sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries greatly depends on agricultural production. The agricultural systems in SSA are characterized by smallholder farmers who highly depend on rain-fed agriculture and unsustainable farming practices, i.e., monoculture, burning, and clearing of natural vegetation [3]. On crop yields (wheat, maize, rice, and soybeans) under different climate change conditions reported a decline in cereal yields with climate change. Mulungu and Ng’ombe (2019) [4] reported a gradual decline in agriculture production in the SSA regions in the last 50 years. With an annual population growth of 2.7% in the SSA region, combined with land pressure and climate variability, food insecurity problems are inevitable. Forcing farmers to take-up new agricultural practices in response to the altered environmental conditions [5]
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