Relationship between agriculture knowledge and form four graduates’ farming activities and attitudes towards farming in Nyandarua West Sub County, Kenya

Abstract

Agriculture contributes the highest in the country’s economy. Despite agriculture being taught in secondary schools, many secondary school graduates seem not to participate in farming activities in Nyandarua West Sub-County. Although it is not clear whether farmers who have studied agriculture in secondary school are making use of the knowledge gained and whether they find it helpful in their careers, there has never been any comprehensive study to investigate the relationship between secondary school agriculture knowledge and Form Four graduates’ farming activities in Nyandarua West Sub-County. The purpose of this study was to fill this gap. The target population was farmers in Nyandarua West Sub-County who sat for Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (K.C.S.E) in the period between year 2000 and 2007. Ex-post-facto research design was used in this study. Snow ball sampling procedure was used so as to establish a sample size of 100 respondents collected from five administrative divisions. A Questionnaire and observation schedules were used in data collection. The researcher discussing the items in the instrument with two experts from the Department of Agricultural Education and Extension and colleagues determined the content validity of the instrument. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to analyze data using descriptive statistics (means and percentages) and inferential statistics (t-test and chi-square) to test the hypothesis at 0.05 significance level. The study results indicates that agricultural knowledge had a positive relationship with adoption of diversification and use of technology in farming. The study also found significant relationship between secondary school agriculture knowledge on students’ attitude towards agriculture. The study concludes secondary school agriculture knowledge positively affect attitude of the students towards farming and contributes to adoption of technologies and diversification. The study recommends for policies to be strengthened to promote acquisition of agriculture knowledge in order to improve participation in farming. The researcher recommends that schools and educators should enhance their efforts aimed at encouraging the students taking secondary school agriculture subject to interact with superior modern technologies in agriculture since it promotes increased production. Agricultural educators should encourage many students in secondary school to study agriculture subject up to Form Four level since it enables the graduates to adopt a profitable diversification portfolio in their farming.