Gendered farmer perceptions towards soil nutrition and willingness to pay for a cafetiere-style filter system for soil testing in-situ: evidence from Kenya

Abstract

Soil nutrition is a key pillar in agricultural productivity. However, point-of-need testing for soil nutrition is not readily available in resource limited settings such as Kenya. We set out to study the perceived needs for soil testing among farmers in this country. A group of 547 farmers from Murang’a and Kiambu counties were recruited through multistage sampling and helped in assessing the attitudes and willingness to pay (WTP) toward a prototype technology for in-situ soil nutrition surveillance based on a cafetiere-style filter system for extraction and a paperbased analytical device (PAD) for nutrient readout. Considerations for the prototype to measure nutrient levels in situ included aspects of affordability, sensitivity, user-friendliness, and portability as well as willingness of farmers to make their own soil data publicaly available. The study revealed that currenlty extremely few farmers carry out soil testing. The cost of testing and that fact that testing centers are often far from the farmers are among the main reasons contributing to farmers not testing their soils. Farmers are generally willing to make their soil data publicly accessible especially with extension officers. The contingent valuation method (CVM) showed that uncontrolled WTP had a 94.24% premium above the Kes 1000 that is incurred by using the existing rapid testing method. Factoring the control variables and disaggregating the model into gender categories the findings showed that youth, women, and men had WTP values of Kes 1612.53, Kes 1558.68, and Kes 1504.83 respectively which indicates that farmers can indeed pay for convenience to test their soils in situ. The study concludes that women and youth should remain the subject of policy focus. Extension education can enhance the improvement of agricultural productivity if the government restores the department’s effectiveness.