Smallholder social networks: Advice seeking and adaptation in rural Kenya

CONTEXT: Smallholder farmers in Africa are among those most impacted by climate change. Employing stra-tegies 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.