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.