Determinization of the Duration that Farmers take to Adopt Integrated Pest Management Strategy for Suppression of Mango Fruit Flies in Kenya

Abstract

Mango production and marketing is hampered by fruit fly infestation that is responsible for high pre and post-harvest losses. To reduce the losses, cost of production and increase the profit at producer level, International Center for Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) had developed and disseminated Integrated Pest Management strategy for suppression of mango fruit flies in selected counties in Kenya. Despite the rapid uptake of the IPM strategy, there is no documented information about the duration that farmers take to adopt IPM technology in Kenya. This study sought to fill this knowledge gap. This study was conducted to fill this gap. Data was collected using a semi-structured questionnaire on a sample of 660 mango farmers from Embu, Meru, Machakos and Makueni Counties. The study employed a multi-stage sampling procedure technique. STATA software was used for data analysis. Descriptive statistics as well as the Weibull and Log-logistic models were used for data analysis. This study found that the Hazard ratio of adoption was positively influenced by size of the household, number of mango trees, market access, extension access, group membership and social networks. It is also important to note that the adoption of IPM strategies is influenced by the process of decision making, priority crop, information flow, knowledge sources and linkage to other institutions. It is assumed that farmers who take a longer time to adopt any IPM strategy, do so when mango destruction by fruit flies is alarming that they eventually do not achieve better output whose impact is negative. The distance to the nearest market for inputs was found to positively influence the adoption of IPM strategies. This means that there has to be an encouragement to rural markets which are closer to mango farmers, to stock all the IPM material requirements. Future policy has to aim at price regulation of the IPM strategy input materials so as to increase the number of IPM users.

Key Words— Households’ Characteristics, Perception, Rainfall Variability, Farming Practices in Kisii Central Sub County, Kenya.