Socio-Economic Factors Influencing Agroforestry Tree and Shrub Species Diversity on Small-Scale Farms in Kisumu County, Kenya
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Date
2023
Authors
Ofulla, Melvin
Kung'u, James Biu
Mburu, Benson Kamau
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
EANSO
Abstract
Kenya is one of the developing countries experiencing rise in demand for
arable land and tree products. This has led to the scarcity of available land for
productive agriculture. To improve this situation, agroforestry technologies
have been assimilated in many regions in Kenya. However, at the local level
in Kisumu County, agroforestry technologies are yet to be adopted effectively
for agrobiodiversity improvement. This study therefore sought to determine
the socio-economic factors influencing the diversity of tree and shrub species
of agroforestry on the small-scale farms in Kisumu West Sub-county.
Descriptive research was undertaken and respondents were selected through
proportionate stratified random sampling. Use of questionnaire instruments
together with Key Informant Interviews were employed to 404 household
heads and forest officers respectively in Kisumu West Sub-county. Inventory
data of tree species was conducted on each of the sampled farm plots and
together with the questionnaire data; Microsoft Excel and SPSS software were
used for exploratory statistics, tree diversity measurement, chi-square and
regression analysis tests. Diversity of agroforestry tree species was analysed
using Shannon-Wiener Index. The results showed that the most abundant tree
species were Eucalyptus spp and Grevillea robusta. The overall ShannonWiener Index was 1.9311 which was regarded as very low. In the study, there
was a significant positive relationship between gender, level of education
completed by household head, household size and the species diversity. In
addition, there was a significant positive relationship between farm size and
species diversity. The study recommends that information on socio-cultural
factors such as education and gender, in addition to economic factors such as
the farm size, that influence diversity should be a priority to the development
partners and even to the local communities
Description
Article
Keywords
Agroforestry, Diversity, Socio-Economic Factors, Climate change, Natural Resources