Transfer of Technology: Role of Social Scientists.

M. M Ngunjiri - AIC KABETE

The agricultural sector encompasses all aspects of human life - social, cultural, economic, political as well as environmental and technical. To be able to enhance agricultural productivity through research, technology development and transfer, it is imperative that a clear understanding of all factors that influence technology adoption be sought. This calls for an all round approach to all issues related to agricultural development with a central focus on the people themselves, which in turn requires dose collaboration between natural and social scientists. This is more critical in the transfer of technology (TOT) process which requires cooperation of the technology developers, the transferors of the technology and the recipients of the technology. Transfer of technology is seen by proponents of agricultural development as a key to improved production and in raising standards of living of rural communities. TOT takes different forms all geared towards ensuring the technology is received, is adopted, and is profitable to the target recipients and is sustainable. The dominant approach to TOT in this country has over the years been top-down. Technologies are generated in universities and research institutions and are usually transferred packaged for adoption by rural communities. This top-down approach has worked well in the large-scale mono-cropped farming enterprises especially under cash cropping and in irrigated agriculture.

In the more complex, diverse and risk-prone rainfed small-scale agriculture, the top-down TOT process has not worked well. This has more often been attributed to the ignorance and lack of interest on the part of the beneficiaries and to poor communication. One thing that is clear is that in the transfer of technology, a wide gap still exists between the research recommendations and what is practiced by the farmer. Factors which may contribute to this state of affairs may be prominently economic, social, administrative, technical and scientific or a combination of them all.

Experience has however shown that lack of a clear understanding of farmer conditions, his priority problems and needs, the lack of information on the part of the experts on the resources available to the small-scale farmer and his capability and capacity to take up new technologies are more to blame for the low levels of technology adoption.

Farmers discussing issues that affect them and highlighting priority needs

Kenyan farming communities are very heterogeneous each with its diverse socio-cultural and economic attributes, varied farming systems, different levels of infrastructural development including marketing channels all of which combine to influence the rare of technology adoption. Another important aspect of the small-scale agricultural sector that requires consideration is its subsistence orientation. Making blanket or uniform technological recommendations which are handed down in a top-down version may not guarantee satisfactory levels of adoption.

Secondly, most arable farming in Kenya is concentrated in the medium and high potential areas where land pressure is acute. In this case, land is the constraining factor while in the vast arid and semi-arid zones, rainfall and poor soils are the main constraints.

Added to this may be the farmers’ desire to avoid risks by not venturing into the unknown - that is taking up new technology whose outcome they are not sure of.

Other factors that require investigation may include the security of land tenure, availability of labour especially if the technology requires an added labour input and availability of cash money if the technology requires extra cash input for the purchase of tools and/or farm inputs. The issue of marketing and marketing channels would need investigation too.

Some intended beneficiaries may remain “invisible” to the promoters of new technology as the prevailing socio-cultural and economic or religious orientations may shield them from meeting and drawing expertise knowledge from the experts during the latter’s extension field days or workshops. In this category are the poor, the landless, the women, the disabled, and the very elderly. The women in particular may not be reached by technology directly due to gender biases which place the man in the fore-front when it comes to receiving extension advice although the woman may be the implementor of the technology. At the same time, the physical environmental conditions may not be conducive to the technology.

All these are factors which it not considered in good time may affect the smooth flow of technology.

There is therefore a great need to integrate scientific work in agricultural development with other disciplines, more so the social - economic discipline especially of the farming systems. This calls for interdisciplinarity in research with social scientists taking the lead in shedding light on how best to put across the findings of research to the farmer.

The social scientists would identify critical problems - social, cultural or economic that may impede on the smooth transfer of technology, investigate the priority needs of the communities as well as assess the feasibility and viability of the technology. They would look at the methods and media through which technical advice can be communicated, assess the likely receptivity of improvements and identify obstacles to effective communication and give alternative suggestions. Armed with this knowledge, researchers and other technology developers would be assured of effective transfer of technology and its adoption as the technology would be addressing the identified priority needs of the recipients.

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