The Contribution of Individual and Group Social Networks to Knowledge Diffusion among Farmers in semi-arid Kenya

Following the radical change of the extension sector in eastern Africa that was triggered by the disproving of the traditional ‘Transfer of Technology’ paradigm in the 1990s, a number of competing and largely decentralized extension approaches have been developed. Basing upon the hypothesis that innovative arrangements and practices emerge from social interaction rather than from the traditional technology development chain, most of those new approaches aim to facilitate exchange and networking among farmers, research and extension organizations. From the coexistence of traditional and alternative approaches arise the need for, and the opportunity of comparative evaluation and impact assessments. The paper investigates the diffusion of innovative farm management technologies in two rural development projects that follow dissimilar extension approaches. Household and community-level social networks represent the analytical levels of analysis. A full sample of 433 households has been interviewed in West Pokot and Makueni Districts of Kenya. Primary data was collected using semi-structured questionnaires, expert interviews, group discussions and rankings, as well as observation. Data was analyzed employing sociometric and statistical software packages. Farm household innovativeness is related to the household communication networks, as well as to the activities of development-oriented village organizations and farmers groups. Research findings are captured in a statistical model. Recommendations refer to the intensification of farmer-to-farmer knowledge exchange, in order to further improve efficiency and efficacy of the technology extension efforts. 1 Background and Aim of the Study On-farm cultivation and management of trees is acknowledged as a promising option to increase the socio-economic well-being of rural populations and to simultaneously stabilize the fragile environment of semi-arid regions. In spite of considerable efforts that have been undertaken to develop and to disseminate innovative farm and tree management methods during the past decades, a very limited number of them have been adopted in practice. New concepts of rural extension work are, therefore, being developed and implemented all over the world. From the coexistence of traditional and alternative extension approaches arise the need for, and the opportunity of comparative evaluation and impact assessment. Basing upon the hypothesis that innovative arrangements and practices emerge from social interaction rather than from the top-down knowledge transfer along the traditional technology development chain, the new paradigm stresses the facilitation of exchange and networking between farmers, research and extension organizations (Engel 1997, Leeuwis & van den Ban 2004). Besides inter-institutional cooperation and linkages, most of the new concepts simultaneously aim to initiate, intensify and institutionalize the horizontal communication and knowledge exchange among farmers. The “Farmer-to-farmer” and the “Farmer Field Schools” approaches that probably constitute the most renowned examples encourage and enable particularly innovative or trained farmers to pass their knowledge and experiences on to their colleagues. Promising results are reported of these approaches (e.g. Fetien Abay et al. 2001, Simpson & Owens 2002, Sones et