Maize technology development and transfer
Abstract
More than three decades of systematic research have been directed toward
maize technology development and transfer in Kenya. During that period, the
maize research program of the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARl)
developed successful technologies that profoundly affected maize production,
both within Kenya and elsewhere in eastern Africa. The rapid diffusion of
improved maize technologies in Kenya is a well-known African parallel to the
spread of hybrid maize in the USA. This is especially true in the highlands of
Kenya, where most maize land was sown to hybrids within less than two
decades from the birth of formal maize research at Kitale.
However, the past three decades have also witnessed Significant change
in the socioeconomic and institutional environment of farming in Kenya, presenting newer challenges to maize research, extension, and policy. Land
reform, population growth and movement, economic and infrastructural
development - among other trends - have shaped corresponding adaptive
responses in maize production. The maize research program has continued to
adjust its emphasis and efforts accordingly. Intent on obtaining better guidance for setting its research priorities, KARl was particularly interested in
exploiting the new tools of research evaluation, which would make it possible to combine and analyze many different kinds of data related to Kenya 's
maize economy. As a result, the Kenya Maize Data Base Project (MDBP) was
launched in collaboration with the Economics Program of the International
Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). The MDBP, which formed
part of the national program of maize research in Kenya, received partial funding from the Rockefeller Foundation and the bilateral USAID mission in Kenya
for two years, starting March 1992.
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