Smallholder social networks: Advice seeking and adaptation in rural Kenya

CONTEXT Smallholder farmers in Africa are among those most impacted by climate change. Employing strategies such as planting early maturing or drought tolerant hybrid seeds is one common climate adaptive strategy for these households. However, seed choice has become increasingly complex for farmers. One way farmers look for clarity about seeds is to consult with other farmers. OBJECTIVE We investigate smallholders' advice seeking within the context of a community water project in rural Kenya, a type of community-based common pool resource management organization. We examine a maize seed advice seeking network and compare it with a more general advice seeking network to better understand the social networks of maize seed advice seeking, and to characterize how peer-to-peer advice networks might factor into farmer decision-making about seeds. METHODS We use exponential random graph modeling for the maize seed advice and general advice networks to test what factors predict advice-seeking among farmers in 104, or 92% of households in the community water project. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS The maize seed advice network is less dense than the general advice network, with farmers on average seeking out fewer people for advice about maize. The features that shape each network also differ. There are some farmers who are significantly more active in seeking advice about maize seeds, and farmers who are already employing more adaptive practices on their farm are more likely to seek such advice. Farmers also seek each other out based on homophily, kinship, and physical proximity, and some farmers are sought out more often. We find evidence that physical infrastructure of the community water project drives advice-seeking ties, where farmers who are attached to the same branch of the water infrastructure are likely to seek advice from each other. SIGNIFICANCE Maize seed is not a topic about which many farmers in this network seek advice, and those who might be perceived as more experienced or educated are not necessarily those most sought for advice. Farmers hold key information due to their on-farm experience, and in the absence of robust extension services and consistent information about hybrid seeds, it is unclear to what extent the advice seeking that farmers do undertake fills those gaps. In addition, co-management of a common-pool resource facilitates advice sharing in both the maize and general advice networks, that is, on topics outside of the immediate reason for being part of a CWP, which is water management.