Social capital effects on the uptake of sustainable agricultural intensification practices and maize availability among smallholder maize-legume farmers in selected Counties, Kenya

Abstract

Kenya’s smallholder maize-legume farmers are faced by many challenges in production, among them soil mining, input acquisition, and low soil fertility. In an attempt to address these challenges, the use of Sustainable Agricultural Intensification Practices (SAIPs) has been promoted widely. However, their uptake has remained low among smallholder maize-legume farmers and it is unclear whether social capital influences SAIPs uptake. Using secondary data from Australian International Food Security Centre (AIFSC) through International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) supported Adoption Pathways (AP) project, a Three Least Squares (3SLS) estimation, a Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR) procedure, and an ordered logistic model were used: to determine factors that significantly influence a household decision to invest in social capital forms; to establish the social capital effects on the uptake of SAIPs combinations; and to analyse the social capital effects on maize availability among smallholder maize-legume farmers, respectively. The findings of the study show that membership score positively and significantly influenced network density (P< 1%). Furthermore, the level of social capital was influenced by the age, education, and gender of the household head, credit received and income of a household. The results further show that, except for cognitive and participation in social capital, the aggregate social capital variable was insignificant in explaining the adoption of SAIPs combination. Moreover, the age of the household head, whether a household received information about SAIPs and input markets, income and household positively and significantly influenced the adoption of SAIPs. On household maize availability, social capital forms were insignificant influencer. However, age, income, and education stock positively and significantly influenced household maize availability. The study results imply that enhanced information dissemination on the benefits of SAIPs adoption and use, through social capital, would lead to improvements on SAIPs adoption rates and levels, and this will improve maize availability, as well.