| This dissertation examines efforts to enhance food security in Kenya through agricultural research programs focused on soil conservation, and particularly agroforestry. Three key stages in the agricultural process are at the center of the dissertation: the stage of agricultural research, the stage of agricultural extension, and the stage of implementation at the household level. All three stages are situated in the context of climate change, which is having a particularly dramatic impact on East Africa. Four major questions orient the analysis: First, what forces shape how agricultural scientists develop and deliver soil conservation knowledge, integrating the understanding of vulnerabilities likely to result from climate change? Second, what are the dynamics of information flow between agricultural research organizations and households today, and how does this differ from earlier historical periods? Third, what forces shape the way households access and implement conservation knowledge? Fourth, how can empirical understandings of multiple stages in the soil conservation process inform policy at local, national, and international levels? The central argument of the dissertation is that food security is determined by a complex interplay of multiple factors---economic, social, cultural, technological, institutional, and biophysical---which call for a multifactorial approach to research design, analysis, and practice. The dissertation draws on ten months of fieldwork in 2005/06 in Nairobi and the Lake Victoria Basin of Western Kenya. A key research site was the Sauri Millennium Village Project, which is a test site for developing ways to meet the United Nation's Millennium Development Goals. |
