Improving Agricultural Extension Services through Faith-Based Initiatives: A Case of the Bahati Farmers Project in Kenya

Abstract

Development-oriented religious organizations could benefit local communities by providing social services particularly in agricultural extension. U.S. President George Bush’s “faith-based initiative” policy, aimed at allowing churches, synagogues, mosques and other religious bodies in the United States to seek government funding for social services recognizes this fact. Though governments will always have responsibility for poverty alleviation, religious organizations seem most suited to working with the poor. They know these people better and are likely to be easily accepted by them when introducing improved agricultural technologies. President Bush’s policy has relevance for all countries, especially a developing country like Kenya. The advocacy for a faith-based approach to rural development in Kenya is particularly timely in view of Kenya’s ongoing retrenchment of extension agents, her limited financial and logistical support for extension, and the high incidence of corruption in public and business sectors. This paper describes a pilot project, the Bahati African Inland Church leaders’ initiative to make extension responsive to community needs and aspirations through a Christian Life Promotion Program. The project was quite successful, indicating that religious organizations could enhance the delivery of extension services. Introduction Religious beliefs partly determine people’s attitudes, values and way of life and sometimes motivate them to serve humanity or give them justification to treat other human beings unfairly. This paper describes the Bahati African Inland Church leaders’ initiative aimed at enhancing / improving agricultural extension delivery services in their community by working closely with local extension service providers. Using specific examples, the paper starts by narrating how people in various parts of the world have used their religious faith (beliefs) to justify acts of injustice against other individuals and groups. Additionally, it shows how religious faith has motivated many people to fight all forms of injustice and to run and manage community-based, social and economic development programs that alleviate human suffering with special reference to Kenya. Religious motivation to serve humanity: Since the world began, some people, in different places, have used their religious faith to support acts of injustice against humanity. How women in Afghanistan suffered under the Taliban fundamentalist leaders as their strict interpretation of Islamic law, is a case in point. Under the Taliban rule, Afghan women had virtually no access to medical care because female doctors could not practice and male doctors were not allowed to see or touch the bodies of female patients (Bowman, 2001). Also, slavery and other forms of racial injustices further reveal the dark side of religion. In general, religious fanatics have fought, maimed, and killed people of other faiths. Examples abound, such as the wars in Sudan, Chechnya and Ireland. Despite the gross misuse of religious faith and beliefs, history is full of good deeds that were wrought and are still being done by people of good will who are motivated mainly by their religious beliefs. For instance, Christian missionaries who currently number approximately 400,000 worldwide have written down hundreds of languages which had never been written before and introduced Western styles of education, medicine, bureaucracy, and humanitarian thought (Pettifer & Brandley, 1990).