The Future of Smallholder Farming in Eastern Africa - Uganda ...

methods such as Farmer Field Schools and Participatory Learning and Action Research
(PLAR) have also been applied.
In 2000, the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) formulated the
Agricultural Technology and Information Response Initiative (ATIRI), whose main goal is to
work with partners to meet farmers’ information and technology demands. In order to
catalyze the process of service delivery to farmers, ATIRI brings together government,
community-based organizations (CBOs), NGOs, and farmers to make demands on KARI
through submission of proposals (KARI 2000). Many CBOs operating within Machakos,
Makueni, Mwingi, Kitui, and Taita-Taveta districts have benefited from ATIRI.
1.2 Statement and significance of the problem
Soil erosion is a serious problem in Kenya’s marginal areas. The effect has been a decline in
agricultural productivity with a consequent increase in food insecurity. Thus, soil and water
conservation is a key ingredient for sustainable agricultural development. The social capital
underpinning the success of these measures has had little or insignificant attention in
empirical literature. This is apparent in relation to its effects in land and resource
management in ecologically fragile areas for agricultural use. Also, studies have shown that
there is a positive relationship between increased slope and soil erosion (Okwach, Palis, and
Rose 1992; Norton-Griffiths 1986), attributable to increased erosive power and velocity of
overland flow as the slope increases.
If physical and human capital facilitates productive capacity, so must social capital.
Yet the role of social capital in motivating the initiation and accomplishment of soil and
water conservation and as a catalyst in overcoming production constraints, imposed by both
the environment and economic institutions, is rarely a major consideration in policy and
policy instrumentation.
Apparently, different forms of social capital have different effects on households’
engagement in production and resource management. It follows, therefore, that identifying
the social capital forms and their functional relationship to resource management, agricultural
development, and sustainable land use should be core to explaining resource use management
and agricultural productivity. However, no such relationship has been established. In
addition, no documentation has been done on how different forms of social capital impact on
land management practices in agriculturally marginal areas of Kenya. The available studies in
this area (Tiffen, Mortimore, and Gichuki 1994; Pagiola 1993, 1994; and Lindgren 1988)
only discuss labor exchange programs, one of the forms of social capital, without causal
linkages and evidence showing how such conclusions are arrived at. In Tanzania, for
example, Narayan and Pritchett (1997) report about the effectiveness of social capital in
reducing poverty.
The functional relationship between social capital and sustainable land use in a
marginal agricultural setting should provide a basis for integrated policy intervention with
households and the community as the focus. In the past, policy and practice tended to be
preoccupied with changing the behavior of individuals rather than of groups or communities;
yet the latter are also crucial (Pretty and Ward 2001). Moreover, marginal areas, at least in
Kenya, are associated with higher risk of crop failure and as a result, soil conservation is an
important input with consequences for both perception and management of production risk at
the farm and community levels. Thus, there are social capital–conservation relationships that
may be significant in the context of marginal agriculture.