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Abstract
Many developing countries today are facing major challenges with
regard to food security due to changes in rural land use, coupled
with population pressure. One of the ways countries like Kenya has
responded to this is by teaching agriculture at various levels of education
especially secondary school level. Little has been done however; to
establish whether there is any significant difference in agricultural
productivity between farmers who graduate with secondary school
agriculture knowledge and those without as a way of building farm
capability hence the study. The sampling procedure adopted by this
study was proportionate sampling technique, where a sub-sample
of farmers from a target population of those farmers with secondary
school agriculture knowledge and those without this knowledge and a
total of 200 farmers where interviewed. Results show that farmers with
secondary school agriculture knowledge perform significantly better
than those without the secondary school agriculture knowledge and
thus have higher levels of food security indicators in crop productivity,
and level of household food security. It is concluded that farmers with
secondary school agriculture knowledge perform significantly better
in all farming aspects as compared to farmers without. The secondary
school agriculture knowledge not only broadens farmers’ capacity, but
also makes them more effective, self reliant, resourceful and capable of solving farming problems and as a result, significantly improves
their crop productivity and hence guarantee food security for the
family. The challenge for the teaching profession is finding out the best
teaching methods as approaches both in and out of class.