Research Report No. 142It is widely accepted that food production benefits from agricultural research, but whether that research benefits the poor is less certain. In 2000, the World Agroforestry Centre and the International Food Policy Research Institute began examining the impact of soil fertility replenishment technologies on the poor in western Kenya. This report is one of seven case studies that comprise a broader IFPRI-managed study designed to determine how agricultural research is benefiting poor people. The goal of this broader study is to identify the conditions under which agricultural research reduces poverty and to improve the targeting of research to the changing needs of the poor. The study develops methods for evaluating the impact of agricultural research on poverty in the context of different agricultural technologies and within different country, social, and institutional settings. It also establishes a foundation that allows agricultural research centers to assess the impact of their work, identify research priorities, and guide technological design to increase future impact on poverty.
Frank Place is an economist and leader of the Land and People theme at the World Agroforestry Centre based in Nairobi. He has conducted work on property rights, natural resource management, and assessment of agroforestry systems, principally in Africa. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA.
Michelle Adato is a sociologist and senior research fellow in the Food Consumption and Nutrition Division at IFPRI, where she leads a multicountry program on evaluating large-scale investments in human capital. Her work focuses primarily on social dimensions of safety net and social protection programs. She co-led the seven-country study on the impact of agricultural research on poverty, of which this report is a part. She holds a Ph.D. in development sociology from Cornell University, USA.
Paul Hebinck is a rural sociologist and senior lecturer in the Department of Social Sciences, Rural Development Sociology group,Wageningen University, in the Netherlands. He has conducted research on agricultural and rural development, use of endogenous resources, and livelihood transformations in western Kenya, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. He holds a Ph.D. in social sciences from the University of Nijmegen, in the Netherlands.
Mary Omosa is a senior research fellow at the Institute for Development Studies, University of Nairobi.A development sociologist, she has undertaken a wide range of research, most of which has focused on rural livelihoods with a strong policy focus, and on the interface between development theory and practice. She also teaches at IDS, and currently holds the UNESCO/UNITWIN Chair at the University of Nairobi. She has a Ph.D. in rural sociology from Wageningen University.
The report is available for download in PDF format as an entire document or by chapter.
- Full Report
- Abstract
- Table of Contents, List of Tables, List of Figures, Foreword, Acknowledgments, and Summary
- Chapter 1: Introduction
- Chapter 2: Research Methods
- Chapter 3: The Context of the Research
- Chapter 4: Poverty in Context
- Chapter 5: Household-Level Livelihood Strategies and Their Context
- Chapter 6: Processes and Patterns of Adoption
- Chapter 7: Soil Fertility Replenishment and Rural Peoples' Livelihood in Western Kenya
- Chapter 8: Dissemination of Soil Fertility Replenishment Technologies: Comparing Approaches, Methods, and Experiences
- Chapter 9: Human and Social Capital Formation: Dissemination within the Villages
- Chapter 10: Conclusions and Recommendations
- Appendix A: Results and Tests from First-Stage Regressions
- Appendix B: Six Village-Level Case Studies of Dissemination Processes
- References
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