The Long-Term Influence of the Training on Good Agricultural Practices in Nandi County, Kenya

Purpose: This study made comparisons on the state of Knowledge, attitude and practices of the trained farmers for the year 2017 against the same cohort in the year 2023 with an aim of evaluating the long-term influence of agricultural training in maize farming in Nandi County Kenya. The study also evaluated the state of Knowledge, attitude and practices of the same trained farmers against untrained farmers by the end of the year 2023. Methodology: A previous study was followed up in the year 2023 to evaluate the role and a six-year long-term influence of the training on the practices. The data was collected through farm interviews. The positive responses of the practices obtained from the administered questionnaires were recorded. A comparison was then made for the responses on the use of twenty Agricultural practices by the trained farmers in the year 2017 and 2023 and also the same responses of the 30 trained farmers against 30 other untrained farmers by the end of the year 2023. Findings: The results were analyzed for significant differences based on the relationships of the independent variables by using descriptive statistics, proportion of means. No significant difference was detected in either of the approaches. The analyses of the practices between the trained farmers and untrained farmers showed no significant difference with p >0.05. A general decline in the adoption of the practices from 91.15% to 81.3% between the years 2017 and 2023 was noted. Poor harvesting and post-harvesting operations during sorting and drying of maize that could enhance aflatoxin infections in the maize value chain were also noted. Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: The study comprises of a mixture of theories. The theory of planned behavior, the innovation itself and diffusion of Innovation theory and technology acceptance, played a big role in evaluating the changes in attitude, long-term influence of the training and time needed to propagate the knowledge gained from the training. The influence of climatic, environmental conditions, and socio-economic factors pose challenges to food safety and food security in general. If these factors are not checked regularly to enhance good farming practices, the elaboration of toxins and the occurrence of various mycotoxicosis in both animals and human beings will be high. Therefore, regular farm training is recommended during every planting season to improve consistence in GAP application and mycotoxin mitigation.