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Farmer land-use decisions are commonly explained and predicted by socio-demographic, economic, ecological, and psychological factors. However, these models explain only part of the empirical data without accounting for the effect of social relations.

This study aimed at exploring the effect of social relations on farmer land-use decisions using the status-power theory of relations. We hypothesised that farmer land-use decisions are driven by the need to comply with requirements of their salient reference groups, such as family, government, and spiritual beings.

We undertook a case study in the Mt. Kenya region where we conducted individual interviews and focus group discussions among smallholder farmers. We then used chi-square automatic interaction detection (CHAID) to explore influence of social relations on land-use practices.

Reported social relations …