Using participatory video materials for learning and disseminating push-pull technology among smallholder farmers in selected districts in Western Kenya

Abstract

Push-Pull Technology (PPT) has been promoted as innovative and effective agriculture technology of addressing yield losses in the maize fields of resource-poor famers due to Striga weeds and Stem borers’ infestation in western Kenya. Being a knowledge intensive technology, learning and uptake of push-pull technology among the smallholder farmers has been relatively slow. Farmers need to have considerable knowledge level for them to learn and adopt it. The purpose of the study was to investigate effectiveness of using participatory video materials in learning and disseminating push-pull technology among farmers. The study sought to compare farmers` knowledge level before and after exposure to print and video content; investigate the social-cultural factors that influence farmers` learning abilities; establish ways of sharing and disseminating video material to reach more farmers. To achieve these objectives, 240 push-pull farmers were sampled purposively and randomly from Bungoma, Kisumu West, Vihiga and Suba Districts. The study adopted a quasi-experimental research design to compare knowledge levels from three treatment groups including: farmers exposed to print materials; farmers exposed to participatory video and farmers exposed to both print and participatory video. Qualitative and quantitative data was collected using structured questionnaires, interview schedules, focused group discussion and document review. Data computation and analysis were done using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). One-way ANOVA analysis depicted significant high knowledge and understanding of push-pull technology compared to the treatment that received print material only. The researcher concludes that participatory video is an effective too for farmers in learning knowledge-intensive technologies such as push-pull technology and therefore confirm the findings of notable researchers in this field, that video is a good instruction medium for teaching varying agricultural subjects among children, youth and the elderly. The researcher recommends that production of educational video targeting local population should have farmers participate in the production process, as this is likely to encourage farmers` to embrace the end product, particularly because most of them share social-economic and cultural backgrounds hence increasing chances of learning and adopting improved technologies.