Development of Health and Sustainability Indicators for a Tropical Highlands Agroecosystem - Integrated Assessment of Health and Sustainability of Agroecosystems - page 161

table 6.3 (continued)
attributes, categories, and number of Researcher-Proposed
Indicators of Health and sustainability of the Kiambu agroecosystem

attribute category luu a ss b

Linkages Contacts 1 1

Familial ties 2 2

Outmigration nil nil

Organization Family structure nil nil

Leadership nil nil

Organizations 1 1

Reciprocity 1 nil

Social control nil nil

Preferences Farm enterprises 2 nil

Food 1 nil

Leisure nil nil

Occupations 1 1

Values Behavioral nil nil

Wealth related nil nil

Well-being nil nil

a Number of land-use unit-level indicators
b Number of study-site-level indicators

LUUs with no cattle comprised 27.1% (61/225) of the total. There was an aver-
age of 1.36 ± 0.11 cattle per acre. The average acreage of land used for agriculture
per LUU was 2.86 ± 0.39, comprising 104.0% of the total land owned. An average
of 13.0% of the area used for farming in a LUU was rented. Among the indicator
crops, the proportion of land under maize was the largest (0.32 ± 0.02), followed by
land under beans (0.21 ± 0.02). Although acreage under kale was small relative to
other indicator crops, yield in kilograms per acre was the highest, followed by that of
potatoes. The average milk yield was 2.92 ± 0.24 kg per cow per day.
The average number of sick days per person per month was 1.92 ± 0.21, with only
0.07 ± 0.01 hospital visits per person per year and 0.03 ± 0.00 hospitalizations per
person per annum, on average. However, the average annual expenditure on health
per LUU was 13,276.03 ± 3,659.65 shillings. Of the LUUs, 140 (62%) did not have
children less than 5 years of age. Of the 85 that had children in this age group, 32.9%
(28/85) did not have CHC cards for any of these children.
Most (64%) of the LUUs did not experience morbidity in livestock, but most (78%)
reported experiencing crop pests and diseases (Table 6.8). The soil fertility score was
low for most (91%) of the LUUs. Most (92%) of the LUUs obtained their water from a
source less than 1 km away. Most (74%) owned bank accounts, but only a few had cof-
fee (8%) or tea (16%) production. Most (69%) had at least one contact with an exten-
sion worker in a year. Most (60%) reported that farm productivity was satisfactory.
Of the variability in the land-use-level, researcher-proposed indicators, 70% was
accounted for by the first 34 dimensions of the MCA (Table 6.9). The first dimension