Abstract:
West-Pokot County, Kenya experiences harsh arid and
semi-arid climatic conditions associated with high poverty
indicators. To alleviate poverty, Non-Governmental
Organizations initiated projects to promote agroforestry
in order to increase sustainable farm forestry management
for food, energy security and wealth creation. However,
adoption of agroforestry technologies has been slow
in these regions due to scanty information on their
profitability. This study determined costs, benefits and
benefit-cost ratios (B/C) of agroforestry technologies in
West-Pokot with the aim of scaling up of profitable and
sustainable agroforestry. Purposive sampling technique
was used to select two sub-locations of the county, Lelan
and Chepareria. Systematic random sampling technique
was used to select 91 and 90 households respectively.
Questionnaire based interviews and field observations
were used in collecting data. Mann–Whitney U test was
used for pair wise analysis to determine B/C ratios of
agroforestry technologies in Chepareria and Lelan that
were significantly different. Boundary tree planting had
the highest B/C in Lelan (9.4) and Chepareria (6.88),
while scattered trees on farm had the lowest B/C of 0.68
in Lelan and 1.11 in Chepareria. Mann Whitney U test
indicated that the B/C ratios of agroforestry technologies
in Chepareria and Lelan were significantly different (U=
210.500, P < 0.005). Boundary planting and fodder bank
technologies had higher B/C in Lelan as compared to
Chepareria. In conclusion, all agroforestry technologies,
except scattered trees on farms in Lelan were profitable in
West-Pokot as they had a B/C greater than 1.
