Influence of education levels on dissemination of soil fertility management information in the central highlands of Kenya

Inadequate links between researchers and farmers has resulted in low uptake of research advances recommended to improve food security in the central highlands of Kenya. Access to timely and accurate information by extension agents and farmers is paramount in dissemination of soil fertility management practices. Hence, the study sought to investigate the effect of education levels on communication channels used to disseminate soil fertility technologies in the Central highlands of Kenya. Questionnaires were used to elicit information from 105 extension agents and 240 farmers. About 50.5% of the extension officers were certificate holders while 29.5% were diploma holders from agricultural institutes. Majority of the farmers had attained primary education (59.6%) while 25.8% and 9.2% had attained secondary and post secondary education, respectively. Research institutions were the most accessible sources of information on soil fertility management practices by extension agents while internet and scientific conferences were the least scored as accessible sources of soil fertility management information by extension agents. Education levels significantly influenced preference of individual approach methods by farmers. There was a significant positive relationship between education and accessibility of internet as a source of information on green manure. The implication of the study was that education levels influenced the mode of communication used in the transfer of soil fertility research outputs to the end users. Consequently, it is extremely important to consider education levels in selection of dissemination pathways used in agriculture.

Quality Governance based on Enterprise Engineering Method and Six Sigma Approach

Enterprise Modeling (EM) is currently in operation either as a technique to represent and understand the structure and behavior of the enterprise, or as a technique to analyze business processes, and in many cases as support technique for business process reengineering. However, EM architectures and methods for Enterprise Engineering can also used to support new management techniques like SIX SIGMA, because these new techniques need a clear, transparent and integrated definition and description of the business activities of the enterprise to be able to build up, optimize and operate an successful enterprise. The main goal of SIX SIGMA is to optimize the performance of processes. A still open question is: "What are the adequate Quality criteria and methods to ensure such performance? What must we do to get Quality governance?" This paper describes a method including an Enterprise Engineering method and SIX SIGMA strategy to reach Quality Governance