Sustainability of Agronomic Practices Implemented by Millennium Villages Project: A Case of Sauri Millennium Village Cluster, Kenya

Abstract

implemented fully have been of little benefit to the community since most have proved to be unsustainable. Millennium Villages Project (MVP) was started to fast track the reduction of poverty especially in rural villages where majority of the world poor reside. In 2004 Sauri, Kenya was selected to be the first millennium village in Africa. The purpose of this study therefore was to find out whether the poverty reduction interventions implemented in the Sauri Millennium Village (MV) cluster by the MVP were sustained or not by the beneficiaries beyond the implementation stage. A total of 150 farmers were selected through systematic random sampling from the MVPs register for the year 2012.  A researcher operated questionnaire was used to interview the respondents. Data was analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics with the help of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 21. The results of the study indicated that most farmers continued to use the improved agronomic practices after the project closure. This is because the project package fitted within their conventional farming activities and therefore easy to adopt and sustain.