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

Abstract

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.

Citation

Kirimi, F.K., Onyari, C.N., Njeru, L.K. and Mogaka, H.R. (2023), "Effect of on-farm testing on adoption of banana production technologies among smallholder farmers in Meru region, Kenya", Journal of Agribusiness in Developing and Emerging Economies, Vol. 13 No. 1, pp. 90-105. https://doi.org/10.1108/JADEE-04-2021-0100