Agriculture Reference
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significant decline in the number of the LUUs classified as having high yield per
acre of indicator cash crops. It is more likely that improved reporting by farmers
(reduction in recall bias) would result in an increase in the estimated yields rather
than a decrease. Further support for this is the significant increase in the number of
LUUs reported as consuming a high proportion of indicator traditional foods, many
of which are utilized during periods of reduced food availability.
7.4.2 e v A l u A t i of n o f g of A l s , e x p e C t A t i o n s , A n D A C h i e v e m e n t s
While there was progress in some of the goals, it is clear that communities did not
follow the priority ranking that they had made in their revised action plans. The
reason for this does not appear to be a change in priorities but probably is a reflec-
tion of the difficulty in implementing some of the plans. In all but two of the vil-
lages, the activities undertaken were those requiring the least investment in terms of
money and time/labor. The formation of vigilante groups and organization of exten-
sion workshops are a good example of this. In all villages, there were attempts to
implement the first item in the action plans, with varying degrees of success among
them. It is difficult to compare the villages based on this because each problem situ-
ation was unique, requiring unique approaches and resources to fulfill. It is however
remarkable that the communities that had most success in implementing their action
plans (based on the number and success of the projects) were those that were older
settlements. The exception to this was Mahindi village, which was unique in the
sense that all the leaders in the village were young people (mostly below 25 years of
age). The reason for this seems to be that most of the adults in this village were either
very old or very young. The middle-aged people lived away from the village (mostly
in Nairobi), where they had formal employment.
Many of the goals seemed to be confluent with the communities' expectation of
ecosystem health and sustainability, except in Githima and Thiririka, where use of
agrochemicals had both positive and negative impacts, therefore requiring optimiza-
tion. Based on the cognitive maps, however, some community expectations were far
beyond what could be achieved. An example is the expectation, in Githima village,
that building classrooms would result in increased literacy levels in the same time
span as it takes improved soil fertility to result in increased household incomes.
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