Effect of on-farm testing on adoption of banana production technologies among smallholder farmers in Meru region, Kenya

Purpose>The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of on-farm testing on the adoption of banana production technologies among smallholder farmers in the Meru region, Kenya.Design/methodology/approach>The study adopted a pragmatic paradigm and a cross-sectional survey design, sampli...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of agribusiness in developing and emerging economies 2023-01, Vol.13 (1), p.90-105
Main Authors: Kirimi, Florence Kaumi, Onyari, Charles Nyambane, Njeru, Lucy Karega, Hezron Rasugu Mogaka
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Access to information
Agribusiness
Agricultural cooperatives
Agricultural production
Agriculture
Bananas
Consumption
Crop diseases
Farmers
Farms
Fruits
Global positioning systems
GPS
Marketing
Participation
Performance evaluation
Pricing
Productivity
Rice
Small farms
Technology adoption
Technology transfer
Value chain
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Summary:Purpose>The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of on-farm testing on the adoption of banana production technologies among smallholder farmers in the Meru region, Kenya.Design/methodology/approach>The study adopted a pragmatic paradigm and a cross-sectional survey design, sampling 370 and 30 farmers proportionately from 269,499 to 19,303 smallholder banana farmers in Meru and Tharaka-Nithi Counties of Kenya, respectively.Findings>The study revealed that there was an association between belonging to a banana farming testing group and the adoption of banana technology. The study also revealed that most farmers were not interested in adopting banana technologies as they preferred the use of conventional methods, due to unstable market prices, lack of subsidized banana production input, inaccessibility to technological materials, few extension experts and lack of enough demonstrations.Research limitations/implications>Some respondents were not willing to freely offer the information required for this study. This was delimited by assuring the informants of the confidentiality of their responses.Originality/value>The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper. The agricultural extension service providers will have more light on the underlying issues that need to be considered if meaningful interventions are to be done on various aspects of the banana value chain.
ISSN:2044-0839
2044-0847
DOI:10.1108/JADEE-04-2021-0100