Factors affecting multiple climate change adaptation practices of smallholder farmers in lower Eastern Kenya

Abstract

The study investigated the socioeconomic and institutional factors influencing uptake of multiple climate change adaptation practices among smallholder farmers in lower Eastern Kenya. Multistage sampling procedure was used to select 384 small-scale farmers. Percentage and regression were used in the analysis. Among the socio-economic factors, gender positively and significantly influenced adoption of conservation agriculture and water harvesting at 5%, respectively. Among the institutional factors, distance to markets positively or negatively influenced uptake of all the technologies at 1% and 5%, respectively. Due to complementarity in adoption of all the seven adaptation practices, age and distance to nearest markets should be considered during technology dissemination. The study, therefore, calls for agricultural policy reforms that aim at designing incentive programmes which adequately address most of the socioeconomic and institutional issues related to uptake of adaptation practices as well as encouraging off-farm diversification.