Abstract:
Bamboo (Dedrocalamus asper) is a very fast
growing, extensive, low-cost plant in the family of grasses with
great potential in environmental conservation and poverty
alleviation. It has over 1500 documented uses. However, with
the present crisis of land in Kenya especially in high potential
areas where bamboo is grown, there is a need to identify options
of cultivating bamboo as an agroforestry crop. Therefore, the
main objective of the study was to establish factors influencing
uptake of bamboo for agroforestry in selected Sub Counties in
Nyandarua County, Kenya. The specific objectives were; to
investigate the agroforestry systems in the selected Sub
Counties of Nyandarua County, to establish the factors
influencing the adoption of bamboo for agroforestry in selected
sub counties of Nyandarua County and to examine the problems
faced by farmers cultivating bamboo in selected sub counties of
Nyandarua. Closed and open-ended questionnaires were
administered to 132 bamboo farmers as the targeted population.
The data collected was analyzed using Statistical Package for
Social Statistics (SPSS) version 23 for data analysis. Likert Chisquare tests were run to establish the relationship between the
rate of bamboo adoption and problems encountered, the
agroforestry system practiced and the social economic factors.
From the results home gardening was the main type of
agroforestry system practiced. It was revealed that, monthly
household income (χ² = 29.87 and χ² =20.053, P = 0.014 and
0.021), size of land (χ² =1.433, and χ² =4.633, P value = 0.031 and
0.009), income from crops intercropped with bamboo (χ² ꓿
14.173 and χ² ꓿25.243; P = 0.004 and p= 0.000) influenced the
rate of adoption of bamboo (χ² ꓿14.173 and χ² ꓿25.243; P =
0.004 and p= 0.000) for Ol’kalou and Ol’jororok Sub Counties,
respectively). The study recommended more research on crops
suitable for intercropping with bamboo as an agroforestry
crops.
