Finger millet ( Eleusine coracana ) yield estimation : integrating remote sensing and indigenous knowledge in Western Kenya
Abstract
Subsistence agriculture in Kenya is rain-fed, and in the era of global climate
change, crop yield is unpredictable posing a great challenge to food security
among the rural dwellers. Among farmers who grow finger millet (
Eleusine
coracana
), there is a tendency to apply traditional skills, practices and
technologies to boost the crop yield. However, these practices have been
overlooked by national research and extension services and there is little
documentation of the same. Today, remote sensing is being used to successfully
predict crop yield. The question however is, can remote sensing show any
change in crop vigour thereby enabling yield estimation based on farmers
’
traditional practices? This project is aimed at improving our understanding of
the relationship between remote-sensed data, indigenous practices and crop
vigour in order to predict and improve finger millet yield thereby promoting the
cereal as a food security crop. A survey will be carried out to investigate farmers
’
indigenous knowledge and practices in finger millet growing areas. This will be
followed by satellite image analysis of farms during the different stages of finger
millet growth. Data collected will be regressed against finger millet yield in
order analyse the relationships among remote-sensed data, indigenous practices
and crop yield. The project will document farmers
’
indigenous knowledge, as
well as produce finger millet agronomic advisories.
URI
http://www.bioversityinternational.org/fileadmin/user_upload/online_library/publications/pdfs/NUS_2013_Book_of_abstracts_1686.pdfhttp://hdl.handle.net/11295/81801
Publisher
University of Nairobi