| Property | Value |
| Name | Evaluating Research on Natural Resource Management: The Case of Soil Fertility Management in Kenya |
| Description | Omamo, S.W., D W. Kilambya, and S. Nandwa. 1999. Evaluating Research on Natural Resource Management: The Case of Soil Fertility Management in Kenya. ISNAR Briefing Paper No. 41.A fundamental challenge facing Kenya’s agricultural research establishment is how to demonstrate that new initiatives in research on soil fertility management can contribute to national growth and equity objectives. A simplified method for quantifying the value of research in soil fertility management has been developed through a recent collaborative effort between ISNAR and the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI). This method estimates the possible economic benefits that could ultimately result from research-induced increases in commodity yields. A modeling exercise was carried out, focusing on the potential impact on commodity yields of the research activities of KARI’s Soil Fertility and Plant Nutrition Research Programme. Some of the factors considered include the distribution of commodities over different production systems, and the distribution of these systems over different geographical zones. The results reveal that different farm-level interventions have the potential to make a significant impact in different zones and across research themes that are important to farmers. The combined estimated gains could add over 60 billion Kenyan shillings (almost 1 billion U.S. dollars) in economic value to Kenya’s rural sector over 30 years. These results suggest that efforts to integrate applied commodity-focused research with farming-systems-oriented adaptive research initiatives are important. They also indicate that, while high rainfall areas will experience the largest gains on aggregate, significant benefits also accrue to Kenya’s arid and semi-arid areas. The method remains unsatisfactory for several reasons. Due to certain limits on data and resources, the procedure could not allow for variations due to differences in estimated net yield gains. Differences in impact were instead attributed to variations in the quantities of specific commodities produced per zone. Potential benefits that are unrelated to commodity yields are also ignored. |
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| Created On: | 11/19/2008 12:00 |
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| Last updated on | 11/19/2008 12:01 |
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