Rapid development for Kenya's small farms

Abstract

The paper presents the results of two years of field experimentation in the Tetu SRDP Extension Pilot Project. It thus briefly describes some of the results obtained, the objectives, the problem to which the tested strategy addresses itself, the step-by-step description of the strategy in how-to-do-it fashion and the benefits to be expected. The strategy aims at accelerating the inflow of food-, employment-, and income generating agricultural innovations to less-progressive farmers in smallholder areas, through integrating the services provided by extension field workers, the FTC (training), the AFC (credit) and the stockist or Cooperative Union (inputs). The project has achieved its aims except in one respect: the repayment ratio for the unsecured crop loan sofar obtained (78%) is still too low to warrant mass replication. Continued experimentation will focus on that problem.