| dc.description.abstract | Agro-forestry is a collective name for all land-use systems and practices where woody
perennial plants are deliberately grown on the same land management unit as agricultural
crops and/or animals, either in spatial mixture or in temporal sequence, while agrosilviculture
basically entails combination of crops and trees in the same land management
unit. The study investigates the factors that influence farmers’ decision to adopt agrosilviculture
Kenya: a case of Kapenguria DivisionWest Pokot County. The guiding
objectives of the study were; to determine the influence of land tenure on adoption of
agro-silviculture in Kapenguria Division, establish how planting inputs (capital, fertilizer
and seeds) influence adoption of agro-silviculture, to establish the influence of gender on
adoption of agro-silviculture and finally to investigate the influence of knowledge of
benefits of tree planting on adoption of agro-silviculture in Kenya a case of Kapenguria
Division West Pokot County. The population of this study dwelt solely on farmers. To
add up to a target population of 300 it involved four forest officers, 2 from KVDA and 2
agriculture officers. The study selected a sample size of 169 respondents from the
targeted 300 by use of Krejcie and Morgan 1970 table. The study employed simple
random sampling in selecting the farmers that participate in this study. Data collection
entailed use of questionnaires, interviews and observation and analyzed using descriptive
methods. The frequencies and percentages were used in interpreting the respondent’s
perception of issues raised in the questionnaires to answer the research questions in table
format. The study findings indicated that land tenure, planting inputs, gender and
knowledge of benefits influences adoption of silviculture. Most of the residents in study
area owned enough piece of land on which they could practice agro-silviculture. The
adoption of agro-silviculture was also dependent on the ability of the farmers to procure
their planting inputs like fertilizers, seedlings and resistant species. The influence of
gender was likely to play a role in the adoption of agro-silviculture. Knowledge of the
benefits of agro-silviculture is a motivation towards it adoption. The study recommends
that the government should deploy more extension officers to do regular agro-silviculture
training to ensure proper land use; increase in capacity building to ensure that farmers
access seedlings from government sectors (Kenya Forest Service) and subsidize
fertilizers for farmers; national and county government should empower women to enable
them increase agro-silviculture practices so as to partake of the benefits of the noble
course and finally more campaigns should be held to increase farmers’ knowledge on
benefit of agro-silviculture. | |
