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    Population Structure and Antimicrobial Resistance in Campylobacter jejuni and C. coli Isolated from Humans with Diarrhea and from Poultry, East Africa.
    (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2024-10) French NP; Thomas KM; Amani NB; Benschop J; Bigogo GM; Cleaveland S; Fayaz A; Hugho EA; Karimuribo ED; Kasagama E; Maganga R; Melubo ML; Midwinter AC; Mmbaga BT; Mosha VV; Mshana FI; Munyua P; Ochieng JB; Rogers L; Sindiyo E; Swai ES; Verani JR; Widdowson M-A; Wilkinson DA; Kazwala RR; Crump JA; Zadoks RN
    Campylobacteriosis and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) are global public health concerns. Africa is estimated to have the world's highest incidence of campylobacteriosis and a relatively high prevalence of AMR in Campylobacter spp. from humans and animals. Few studies have compared Campylobacter spp. isolated from humans and poultry in Africa using whole-genome sequencing and antimicrobial susceptibility testing. We explored the population structure and AMR of 178 Campylobacter isolates from East Africa, 81 from patients with diarrhea in Kenya and 97 from 56 poultry samples in Tanzania, collected during 2006-2017. Sequence type diversity was high in both poultry and human isolates, with some sequence types in common. The estimated prevalence of multidrug resistance, defined as resistance to >3 antimicrobial classes, was higher in poultry isolates (40.9%, 95% credible interval 23.6%-59.4%) than in human isolates (2.5%, 95% credible interval 0.3%-6.8%), underlining the importance of antimicrobial stewardship in livestock systems.
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    Resourceful, creative, and committed : the day-to-day work of agricultural extensionists in Kenya : a dissertation presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Agricultural Extension at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2022) Mbinya, Romana
    Broadly, the role of public extension and advisory agents is to facilitate and support access to technical knowledge, information and technologies by farmers, farmer organisations and actors in the agricultural sector, through trainings and demonstrating appropriate technologies and innovations. This study challenges the view of extensionists as simply transferring technologies to farmers and has explored more broadly the day-to-day, lived experiences of extensionists. The research has focused on public extensionists who serve smallholder subsistence farmers who engage in diverse farming activities and are dispersed across a large geographical area. The research was completed using a qualitative case study research design, based on data collected through in-depth interviews, documents and participants’ observations. It emerged from this research that over 80% of the extensionists in this case were locals, and knowledgeable of and known by the community. They were familiar with local livelihoods and political dynamics and, therefore, were strongly embedded in the community. Over 90% of the extensionists who participated in the study had been doing extension work for all their working lives. Extensionists emerged as having strong networks among actors in the local and national extension, and agricultural systems. The extensionists’ work emerged as a hybrid of a demand-supply driven extension system where they respond to direct farmer inquiries, as well as supply services to farmers in accordance with projects and government accountabilities and goals. This research highlights the extent to which much of what extensionists do in a developing country context in a government extension service, dominated by project work, is not directly working with farmers to service their needs. This research shows the huge extent of work undertaken by extensionists behind the scenes (referred to as back-office work) and the interconnectedness between activities extensionists do with farmers and what they do with other extension actors. Primarily, the day-to-day work of extensionists included servicing smallholder farmers’ needs and gathering solutions from multiple sources to contribute to addressing these needs. Extensionists emerged as resource brokers who glean, leverage, optimise, haggle, barter, piggyback, coach, lobby, and advocate for financial and physical resources to support their extension work and to support farmers. Extensionists negotiated and collaborated with farmers to translate, adapt, transfer, and implement farm technologies to meet farmers’ contextual challenges. Extensionists worked to deliver on multiple projects and optimise project benefits for farmers within the project timeline. The study shows that extensionists deliver on employment commitments as government employees and work to meet their expected Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and work to maintain and build legitimacy in their roles as extensionists with government, local politicians, NGOs, and the wider community. Extensionists leveraged on their networks to access information, knowledge, technologies, and physical and financial resources. A significant contribution of this study was the finding that extensionists are resource brokers and the illustration of the creativity and the amount of effort they put into resources financially and physically, their work, and for the farmers. A further contribution this research makes is to highlight that Kenyan extensionists work to maintain and build legitimacy of their role. While extensionists emerged as working with smallholder farmers to reduce the impact of and build resilience to climate change, there was no evidence of the way they work with farmers or the broader extension system. The work of extensionists is deeply embedded in the traditional designs and ways of doing extension. These research findings clearly show the extent of resourcefulness and creativity of extensionists and their ability to develop strategies to navigate the multiple demands and the accountabilities placed by farmers, the employer, projects, funding entities and other actors in the extension system. Resource brokering and networking emerged as key strategies which enable extensionists do what they do. These findings will inform education and extension policy on the training of extensionists to include imparting capabilities and skills about resource brokering as it is a significant part of their job. These results suggest the need for further studies which explore new, positive, and meaningful ways of engaging with farmers to assist them to learn and change as needed.
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    Factors shaping the availability of state-owned, degraded tropical forests for conservation management by NGOs in Ghana, Kenya and Uganda : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Environmental Management, Massey University, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2016) Ross, Amy Elizabeth
    Degradation of tropical forests contributes to climate change, loss of biodiversity through habitat reduction and ongoing poverty for people who depend on forest resources. This study investigates the current policy environments governing the use of degraded state forests in Ghana, Kenya and Uganda. The research has been undertaken with a view to assisting A Rocha International, an international NGO, in their evaluation of the potential to establish a community conservation project in one or more of these countries. In order to achieve this aim, two key research questions were posed: 1) How do institutional, social and ecological factors enable or constrain NGOs from achieving community conservation goals?; and 2) To what degree are state-owned, degraded tropical forests available for conservation management by NGOs? A multiple case study approach was used for the research. Data was gathered through face-to-face and remote interviews, current policy documents and other secondary sources and personal observation during field trips to Ghana and Kenya. Interviews were conducted with conservation NGO staff, forest-adjacent residents, state forestry officials and district forestry services staff. The policy environments of each country were analysed using a modified version of the social structurationist framework. It was found that the policy environments in Ghana, Kenya and Uganda share many important similarities. Despite the fact that published state policies in all three countries are generally supportive of community conservation initiatives, it is evident that limited policy implementation is likely to have the greatest impact on any proposed project. Socially, pressures on forest governance stemming from corruption, demographic pressures, poverty and energy dependency are common to all three countries. Ecologically, on a broad scale, similar conditions exist across the three countries. Complexities of land tenure, forest benefits distribution and competing interests of actors in Ghana, Kenya and Uganda, can lead to challenges in developing partnerships 3 with local stakeholders in a community conservation project. A key lesson emerging from the study is that time and resources should be invested in addressing this issue. If successful, regardless of the published state forestry policy the conservation NGO may be enabled by the stakeholders to achieve its goals and even influence policy. Faith-based organisations may also have some advantages when it comes to building successful working relationships between project stakeholders. Further lessons relevant to conservation NGO work in the African context may be gleaned from the field of development studies.
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    English second language (L2) literacy instruction and acquisition in Kenyan rural primary schools : a thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of M. Ed. (Special Education)
    (Massey University, 2003) Mwathe, Grace Njoki
    Teachers' literacy instructional approaches in English language for children in lower primary (Year 1 to Year 3) Kenyan schools were investigated. Fifteen teachers were given an error scenario task and a questionnaire task, which were used to categorise them as either using context-based, word-based, or mixed (using both context-based and word-level strategies) approaches. The aim was to determine which instructional approach is most effective for early literacy development in a second language context. The results indicated that slightly more than a half of the teachers preferred to use mixed approaches. Further, children who received mixed approach instruction preformed significantly better on all literacy and literacy-related measures than children who did not receive such instruction. Language, reading and reading-related tasks in English Language were administered to 148 children. The aim was to investigate the literacy developmental trends across the years and establish which of the two variables, word identification skills or second language oral ability, influenced reading comprehension performance. The results indicated that word identification skills independently influenced reading comprehension performance in both Year 2 and Year 3 classes, but language skills did not.
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    Market in their palms? : exploring smallholder farmers' use of mobile phone farming applications and their effect on the farmers' farming, marketing and well-being : a case study of selected counties in Kenya : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Development Studies at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2014) Ajwang, Fredrick Odhiambo
    The role of technology in development has been discussed in wide and varied literature. Over the course of history, technology has facilitated the process of development by helping individuals transcend some of the problems they face in their daily life. In recent times, the revolution in information and communication technology has come to play a crucial role in development and poverty reduction. This study explored the use of such technology, in this case the mobile phone farming applications, by smallholder farmers in Kenya to facilitate their agricultural production and marketing. The aim of the study was to explore the use of the mobile phone farming applications by the smallholder farmers to access markets and information and to assess the effects of their use on the farmers’ farming and marketing experience as well as their well-being outcomes. The results from the study indicate that the mobile phone faming applications have facilitated the smallholder farmers to access markets and marketing information. These applications have been effective in reducing the information search costs and marketing transaction costs for the smallholder farmers leading to enhanced access to information and markets. The reduced marketing transaction costs have, in turn, led to increased market participation by the smallholder farmers. Evidence from the literature indicates that when smallholder farmers have increased access to market information, their power in the market, in terms of their ability to bargain with traders, increases. In this study, it was also found that the rural farmers had been empowered by their increased access to information and they could, therefore, engage in price negotiation with potential buyers. This, together with access to higher paying markets, led to an increase in the farmers’ income. Furthermore, the use of these applications facilitated the farmers to form networks with other farmers and traders. These networks, eventually became, an important source of marketing and production information to the farmers. In contrast, it was found that the mobile phone farming applications were not effective in providing agricultural production information to the smallholder farmers. As a result, the farmers were using other means to access agricultural production information. These included the use of the internet and the networks and linkages with other farmers to access agricultural production information. However, evidence from the study indicates that, these mobile phone farming applications have a potential of facilitating smallholder farmers’ access to information and markets in Kenya.
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    Air gasification of woody biomass from short rotation forests : opportunities for small scale biomass-electricity systems : a thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Agricultural Engineering at Massey University, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 1997) Senelwa, Kingiri A.; Senelwa, Kingiri A.
    Downdraft gasification of short rotation forestry (SRF) biomass was investigated to identify opportunities for small scale biomass-electricity systems. Case studies were conducted in Kenya to identify these opportunities by (i) defining the energy demand and supply structure to identify markets; (ii) evaluating the biomass resources available; and (iii) identifying the availability of other facilities required for such a system. At the same time, the yield potential of 12 SRF species, planted in Palmerston North, New Zealand in small plots at 3470 stems/ha and harvested after 2, 3, 4 and 5 years was evaluated. Samples were collected from each species to determine their energy properties. Data on tree growth, yield, and biomass properties were used to develop two multi-objective indices - the relative yield index (RYI) and the fuelwood value index (FVI) for evaluating SRF species. Biomass from the 4 year rotation harvest was used as feedstock to fuel a downdraft air gasifier rated 35 kW (electric). Feedstock gasification processes, gas quantity and quality were correlated with the biomass properties to define the characteristics of a good fuelwood species for gasification purposes. The Kenyan studies highlighted constraints in the energy sector and identified opportunities for new bioenergy technologies. Small scale biomass gasification systems showed potential but suitable sites were restricted to sawmills where processing residues could be used as gasifier feedstock. Field trials of SRF systems were recommended to evaluate tree species over different silvicultural treatments, and to intensify biomass production. A demonstration plant at one of the bigger sawmills was recommended to stimulate interest among investors. Species yields of the trial plantings in New Zealand in the 12 species assessed ranged from 6 ODt/ha/y for Alnus glutinosa to 73 ODt/ha/y for Eucalyptus globulus at 5 year rotations. A stocking density trial of E.saligna showed that 3,500 stems/ha managed on 4-5 year rotations provided the highest yields. Though these yields may not be achieved in field plantings or in Kenya, the study demonstrated the feasibility and methodology that could be applied. Like yield, the bioenergy properties varied between species. Higher heating values ranged from 19.6-20.5 MJ/kg for wood, 17.8-20.6 MJ/kg for bark, and 19.5-24.1 MJ/kg for leaves. Gas yields varied between 1.88-2.89 g/g dry wood due mainly to moisture content variations which also affected the composition of the gas. Gas heating values varied from 4.602 to 6.112 MJ/Nm3, and were considered to be of sufficient quality to fuel internal combustion engines. Both RYI and FVI showed that yield factors outweighed bioenergy properties when identifying a good fuelwood species. The large differences in yields indicated the benefits that could be achieved by selecting appropriate species for a specific region. Although feedstock properties affected the gasification processes and products, their overall influence was not statistically significant. The inclusion of bark in the feedstock did not adversely affect the suitability of the feedstock.
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