Effect of Global-GAP Policy on Climate Change Perceptions of Smallholder French Beans Farmers in Central and Eastern Regions, Kenya

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Abstract
The risks posed by climate change to Sub Saharan Africa’s (SSA) smallholder fresh export fruit and vegetables production are amplifying the significance of farmers’ climate change perceptions in enhancing adoption of suitable adaptation strategies. Production of fresh export fruit and vegetables in Kenya has increasingly been done under the Global-GAP standard scheme by smallholder farmers to improve both environmental conservation and market access. The objective of this study was to determine the effect of Global-GAP policy on climate change perceptions of smallholder French beans farmers. The analysis was based on data collected from a random sample of 616 households interviewed in the Central and Eastern regions of Kenya. The study used principal component analysis (PCA) to extract farmers’ key prevailing climate change perceptions and logit regression model to examine the effect of Global-GAP policy on climate change perceptions among other socio-economic factors. The PCA analysis extracted three components proxying for ‘droughts’, ‘delay in rainy seasons’, ‘diseases and pests’ and three proxying for ‘hot days’, ‘floods’, and ‘diseases and pests’ as summarizing maximum variance in the perceptions in the Central and Eastern region respectively. The common, study area-wide climate change perception was identified as incidence of diseases and pest. Logit regression analysis found that Global-GAP policy significantly influenced and improved farmers’ probability of perceiving climate change. Other factors found to influence farmers’ probability of having the identified climate change perceptions included regional specificity, access to agricultural extension service, access to credit, plot size, and soil fertility. The policy implication of this study is that the government and service providers should mainstream factors like Global-GAP compliance and regional considerations found to improve probability of perceiving climate change in awareness creation extension strategies, towards enhancing adoption of adaptation measures in the smallholder fruits and vegetables farming sector.

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