Fertile ground? : soil fertility management and the African smallholder

Thesis, Wageningen Universiteit, 2007Misiko, M 2007. Fertile Ground? Soil fertility management and the African smallholder. Ph.D. Thesis, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands. 146 pp. // The focus in this thesis is to form a view of how well soil fertility research performs within the ever shifting smallholder contexts. This study examined application of agroecological knowledge for soil fertility management by smallholder farmers, with the view to enhancing the utility of research among resource-deprived farmers of western Kenya. // A realist methodological approach to the study of soil management was applied. It is shown that soil fertility management operates under the assumption that consequences (soil management) are to be explained not just by contextual states (in this case farmer knowledge) but by “mechanisms” of decision making and soil management that need to be uncovered. Knowledge is nothing unless it engages with real soil management processes