Adapting agriculture to climate change: institutional determinants of adoption of climate-smart agriculture among smallholder farmers in Kenya

Abstract

ABSTRACT Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) adoption rates have remained low in Kenya despite being promoted by the Kenyan government and its development partners. Analyzing institutional factors could help inform efforts to mitigate potential climate adaptation mal-actions in Kenya and other contexts. This study examined the relationship between institutional factors and CSA adoption among smallholder potato farmers in Gilgil Sub County of Nakuru County, Kenya. The institutional factors selected for this study included access to credit, training on CSA, non-governmental organization (NGO) support, and farmers' group membership. A binary logistic regression analysis unveiled that smallholder potato farmers' adoption of CSA was positively related to institutional factors, which was statistically significant at a 5% significance level (χ2 = 10.219, df = 4, p < 0.05). However, only access to credit was positive and statistically significant at a 5% significance level (Wald χ2 = 4.524, df = 1, p < 0.05) among the four explanatory variables included in the binary logistic regression model. Therefore, warranting access to credit is deemed to produce favorable requisites for adopting farming methods befitted to adapting agriculture to the effects of climate change. One way of warranting access to credit could be mobilizing farmers to join groups that serve as Savings and Credit Cooperatives (SACCOs) and Village Savings and Lending Associations (VSLAs) because farmers that join SACCOs or VSLAs have access to loans that may otherwise be challenging to obtain from conventional financial institutions.