| dc.description.abstract | Afforestation represents one of the most significant land uses in the world to mitigate global warming. Seventy percent of the people in developing countries ue wood fuel and burn an average of 700kg per person yearly. This research investigated factors influencing implementation of afforestation project a mong farmers contracted by tobacco companies in Kuria District. The statement of the problem was that despite millions of tree seedlings raised by tobacco companies in Kuria each year, there was still an acute shortage of trees in the District.The objectives of the study was to explore, the influence of land tenure ,to investigate farmers extension service ,to a assess farmers participation and to examine the influence of institutional capacity on implementation of afforestation projects among farmers contracted by tobacco companies in Kuria District .
It is hoped that this research may help tobacco companies, CBO' and NGO's to successfully implement their projects .The study was carried out a among farmers contracted by tobacco companies in Kuria District A population of 200 farmers was targeted and a sample of 64 selected using stratified sampling method. The researcher used face to face questionnaire because most farmers were illiterate. The researcher pre-tested the instruments and used expert judgment to test the reliability of the instrument while adopting content validity to measure the validity of the instruments. The researcher collected both qualitative and quantitative data and analyzed it using a computer generated software SPSS version 16. The analysis was presented using percentage distribution to show a particular
frequency.
The analysis revealed that on farmer's extension service 79.47% of the respondents rated farmer's extension service factors as significant. On land tenure factors, the analysis of land holding, land size, land size under afforestation revealed that 86,4% of the respondents felt that land tenure was a limiting factor .On farmer's participation perception, 71.9% of the respondents viewed rare parti~t1);volvement between the farmers and tobacco companies to the management of the project while of the 64 respondents interviewed, 92.1 % perceived that institutional factors had a significant impact on effective implementation of afforestation project among farmers contracted by tobacco companies in Kuria District.
Land size per farmers in Kuria is small,on average afarmer owns 0-5 Ha of land, making it a challenge to invest on trees which have long payback period. It was also observed that 92.2% have only invested 0.05 Ha on afforestation which is insignificant to support wood fuel in Kuria. Tobacco companies do not encourage stakeholders meeting and regular monitoring of the project as they fear criticism from farmers. The research recommended that the companies should advice the farmers on the appropriate variety of trees which are soil and crop friendly and fast maturity given that most farmers in Kuria owns small pieces of land (average 6 hectare).In order to be in business, the researcher recommended that the tobacco companies should invest in company woodlot where they can supply the wood fuel to the farmers at a fee like the tea companies for them to be in business in future. | en_US |
