Household economy and traditional agroforestry systems in western Kenya

Soniia David

Agriculture and Human Values, 1997, vol. 14, issue 2, 169-179

Abstract: In the cash budgets of farm householdsin western Kenya, off-farm occupations and cropsaccount for the most important sources of income. Treeand livestock products are of secondary importance incash terms, although farmers attach great importanceto trees as a source of income because of the variousnon-monetary functions they supply. The findingspresented in this paper suggest that two variables,the domestic development cycle of households andwealth, are likely to affect the adoption pattern ofcertain introduced agroforestry technologies,depending on farmers' strategies to produce treeproducts and milk for subsistence, largely for themarket or some combination of the two. However, forthe most part, farmers in western Kenya are likely togive first priority to investing in enterprises, suchas business and livestock production, that yieldshort-term financial returns as oppossed to investingin long-gestation agroforestry technologies whichprovide non-tangible benefits and financial returnsonly after several years. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 1997

Keywords: Agroforestry systems; Farm households; Income (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1997
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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DOI: 10.1023/A:1007351030059

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