Farmers participatory evaluation of maize varieties in Kenya

Objectives

1. To identify the maize varieties currently grown by smallholders in the selected regions.

2.To evaluate farmers’ selection criteria for different maize varieties in the selected regions.

3. To evaluate the new stress tolerant varieties from STMA by farmers, using farmer criteria in PVE trials.

4. To evaluate the influence of socio-economic factors on farmers' selection of different maize varieties and traits in the selected regions.

Work expectations

  • MSc. Thesis in Agricultural Economics
  • Conference paper  submitted to the conference of the Association of African Agricultural Economics, Abuja 2019
  • Journal article to be submitted to an appropriate journal.

Activities

  • Literature review and proposal development
  • Curating data from farmer evaluations in Eastern Kenya, moist transitional zone (Meru county, 522 farmers), Central Highlands (Kirinyaga with 361 farmers), Western Highlands (Kakamega with 382 farmers and Bungoma with 738 farmers) for both mid and end-season of 2018.
  • Collect and enter data for Eastern mid transitional (Machakos) to be conducted on18th and 19th February 2019.
  • Analysis of the data to understand farmers’ appreciation of the new stress tolerant varieties as compared to commercial checks
  • Write-up the results into MSc thesis
  • Write-up a synthesis into a research paper, to be submitted to a conference and a journal

Required skills:

  • Statistics and data analysis
  • Spreadsheet, word editor and presentation software (Microsoft Office suite)
  • Statistical software and languages (SPSS and Stata)
  • Report writing