Agri-Food Economics Africa was contracted by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT) in December 2017 to undertake a study “Biotic and Abiotic stresses facing Kenya’s farming community” under the Stress Tolerance Maize for Africa (STMA) project.

The study’s aim is to assess the impact of various farmers’ stresses and the results will enable STMA understand biotic and abiotic stresses in smallholder maize producing households in Kenya, and how farmers prioritize them. This understanding is important in guiding research on the development of new technologies. Importance of stresses is likely to have changed with the arrival of new pest problems, in particular larger grain borer (LGB), maize lethal necrosis (MLN) disease and the fall army worm (FAW). The survey also collected information on the uptake of improved maize technologies relevant for STMA, in particular drought tolerant varieties, stemborer resistant varieties, striga tolerant and imazaphyr resistant (IR) varieties, and hermetic storage technologies (hermetic bags and metal silos).

The study was undertaken in 120 communities using Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) across maize-growing areas in 32 Counties in Kenya. The data was collected electronically using Survey CTO platform. Agri-Food Economics worked with CIMMYT to pretest and finalize the questionnaire, and finalize the study design. It recruited enumerators and field supervisors, trained them, designed SurveyCTO data collection forms, undertook the survey using its own tablets, and cleaned and labeled the data.  Agri-Food Economics Africa is also partnering with CIMMYT in analysis and writing.