Abstract:
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of on-farm testing on the adoption of banana
production technologies among smallholder farmers in the Meru region, Kenya.
Design/methodology/approach – The study adopted a pragmatic paradigm and a cross-sectional survey
design, sampling 370 and 30 farmers proportionately from 269,499 to 19,303 smallholder banana farmers in
Meru and Tharaka-Nithi Counties of Kenya, respectively.
Findings – The study revealed that there was an association between belonging to a banana farming testing
group and the adoption of banana technology. The study also revealed that most farmers were not interested in
adopting banana technologies as they preferred the use of conventional methods, due to unstable market
prices, lack of subsidized banana production input, inaccessibility to technological materials, few extension
experts and lack of enough demonstrations.
Research limitations/implications – Some respondents were not willing to freely offer the information
required for this study. This was delimited by assuring the informants of the confidentiality of their responses.
Originality/value – The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal
relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper. The agricultural extension
service providers will have more light on the underlying issues that need to be considered if meaningful
interventions are to be done on various aspects of the banana value chain.
