Essy Chemutai Kirui2026-02-232026-02-232025http://41.89.96.81:4000/handle/123456789/3580Brassica and Traditional African Vegetable (TAV) farming is a source of employment opportunities and income for smallholder farmers in Kenya. However, the production of these vegetables is hindered by various challenges which lead to lower incomes for the smallholder farmers. Agroecological cropping systems present solutions to these production problems, but there is insufficient evidence of their economic advantages. This study, therefore, sought to determine the effect of agroecological vegetable cropping systems on the performance (net income and technical efficiency) of smallholder farmers in Kiambu and Murang’a counties. The specific objectives were to characterize smallholder farmers implementing agroecological vegetable cropping systems; to determine the factors that influence the adoption of agroecological vegetable cropping systems; and to assess the effect of agroecological vegetable cropping systems on the performance of smallholder farmers in Kiambu and Murang’a counties. Multistage purposive sampling was carried out to collect data from 546 households using standardized, semi-structured questionnaires. Descriptive statistics were used to characterize the smallholder farmers. Multivariate probit model was used to assess the factors that influence adoption of agroecological cropping systems. The multinomial endogenous switching regression model was used to assess the effect of adoption on smallholder farmers’ performance. Study results indicated that most of the smallholder farmers (78%) had adopted crop rotation but the rate of adoption for other cropping systems was low. The findings indicated that the gender and occupation of the household head, gender of the plot owner and manager, gross income from vegetable production, number of trainings attended, availability of market information, income from non-vegetable farming activities, distance to input and output markets, access to extension services and the location of the farm were the major factors influencing adoption. Additionally, adopting crop rotation alone significantly (p<0.05) led to a decrease in smallholder farmers' net incomes, whereas adopting multiple cropping alone led to a significant (p<0.05) increase in the farmers’ net incomes. Regarding technical efficiencies crop rotation alone was associated with a negative and significant (p<0.01) effect, whereas adopting both multiple cropping alone and the combination of multiple cropping and crop rotation contribute significantly and positively to farmers' technical efficiencies at (p<0.01) and (p<0.1) respectively. The study recommended that policies and programs aimed at promoting the adoption of agroecological cropping systems that boost farmers’ net incomes and technical efficiencies should be developed.enThesis