The Effect of Socio-Economic Factors on a Farmer’s Decision to Adopt Farm Soil Conservation Measures. An Application of Multivariate Logistic Analysis in Butere/Mumias District, Kenya

Abstract

This study was conducted to identify the various socio-economic variables and how they affect the farmer’s decision to adopt soil resource conservation measures in Butere Mumias District. Soil is a fixed national asset which is essential to guarantee food security, cash crop and industrial crop production. It is important to conserve this resource since it cannot be expanded. The study considers the policy framework that needs to be put in place to stimulate the adoption of soil conservation measures. The study area was divided into five clusters and using households as sampling units, forty households were selected per cluster using the simple random sampling technique. A total of 200 respondents were interviewed using structured questionnaires. A Logit model was employed to identify the main factors influencing adoption of soil conservation measures on farms surveyed in this district. The SAS computer package was used to run the model, to derive the maximum likelihood estimates of the adoption process and to calculate the chi-square. The results of the Logit analysis showed that education, age, gender, and land size were significant at 0.05 level of significance. This is an indication that these are critical factors influencing adoption of soil resource conservation measures in the district. Formal education is vital and farmers should be educated on the need to adopt soil conservation measures on their farms. Attention should be focused on the farmers who are over 50 years old who are the main decision makers in most households. The role of extension in promoting individual and corporate soil conservation measures should not be down played especially as concerns providing technical advise. Small-scale farmers should be encouraged to intensify soil conservation as this will improve their soil fertility and improve their yields making their farming profitable