Household socio-economic factors influencing choice of agro-advisory dissemination pathways for climate change in semi-arid areas of Kenya

Abstract

Development in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is adversely affected by climate change and variability due to the dependence of its economies and livelihoods primarily on rain-fed agriculture. This creates the need for agro-advisories to enable farming communities make strategic and tactical farm level investment decisions likely to minimize on the impacts of climate change and seasonal variability induced risks. Agro-advisories boost informed decision-making as well as planning of farm activities. Farmers have often failed to get such information where the need is greatest especially in a form they can understand and use. The purpose of this study was to characterize the pathways through which farmers receive usable location-specific agro-advisories as well as to evaluate the effect of the socio-economic environment in the access of such information. Data was collected from 400 randomly selected households in lower eastern Kenya in a cross-sectional survey. Multivariate probit regression was used to determine the factors that are significant in influencing the choice of pathways used in accessing climate change adaptation information. The study recommends that the significant factors be considered in efforts geared towards promoting agro-advisory preparation and dissemination to improve adaptation to climate variability and change in dryland areas.