Research and development institutions have over the years developed agricultural technologies many with potential to solve many of farmers' problems. Unfortunately, not all the promosing agricultural technologies are adopted by farmers or if adopted, have a short lifespan.

It has not been very clear why many of the introduced technologies are not practiced for long before being abadoned or why farmers usually revert to their traditional technologies even though they are likely to be less superior to the introduced ones.

To avoid problems that have bedeviled newly introduced technologies, the African Technology Policy Studies Network(ATPS) has contracted the Centre for African Bio-Entrepreneurshiphave(CABE) to investigate the dynamics of introducingbiotechnologies to farmers with a particular focus tissue culture(TC) bananas.

The study, Biotechnology Knowledge Management in Sub-Saharan Africa, will contribute to knowledge generation, brokering, and dissemination of agricultural biotechnology in Africa. Consequently, the ongoing study will facilitate unbiased exchange and access to policy makers and general public.

Hannington Odame, Executive Director, Cabe, notes that the study will contribute to three areas of knowledge sharing on Biotechnology in Africa: Imporove research for general policy use about specific biotechnology issues: Catalogue traditional seed varieties in selected Sub-Saharan countries and increase public participation in biotechnology policy making process.

Odame feels that the intense debate regarding the development and introduction of modern Biotechnology in Africann agriculture has often stagnated on one-sided biases of those in favour anf those against genetically modified foods and crops. "Yet more interactions between these two sets of forums could lead to appropriate technologies based on a number of clearly specified economic, social and environmental criteria."

The study therefore, seeks to increase public participation in biotechnology policy-making process because the public deserves to be informed and participate and participate in debates regarding biotechnology as they are affected by the outcomes.

The study is being conducted in Kisii, with focus on bananas for various reasons. The choice of Kisii and bananas is based on the fact that Kisii is traditionally a banana growing area where farmers have been growing various traditional varieties. Secondly, banan is one of the few crops that characterise developments in biotechnology in Kenya.

It is therefore possible to determine the adoption rates, the cost implications, farmers' perceptions and the perfomance of bananas to compared to the traditional varieties. For instance, with all the better attributes over the traditional varieties, especially on yield perfomance and resistance to diseases, are the tc bananas the most preferred by Kisii farmers?

Having grown both traditional and tc bananas, farmers are better placed to identify problems encountered so far with the tc technology and provide solutions that can be eulated or replicated in other areas where tc bananas are being grown.

In addition to looking at factors that determine the factors that determine the uptake of banana knowledge, the study also looks at how farmers have shared tc banana technology and their learing process of the tc banana technology. It is known that the more the farmers interactions the more the uptake of any technology. It is therefore important to determine how farmers interactions in Kisii determine scale-up activities of the technology, according to Macdonald Wesonga, Executive Director, Appropriate Rural Development Agricultural Programme(ARDAP).

Other than looking at the dynamics of adopting tissue culture bananas in Kisii, the study also catalogues traditional banana varieties and analyses the potential threats and opportunities of introduced technologies on the farmer preferred banana varieties. it is important to document this because many local communities have created vast storehouses of knowledge regarding which indigenous seed varieties flourish under which ecological conditions, according to Wesonga