Determinants of Tea Marketing Channel Choice and Sales Intensity among Smallholder Farmers in Kericho District, Kenya

The aim of this study was to determine the socio-economic and institutional factors influencing smallholder farmers’ choice on tea marketing channel in Kericho District. A semi-structured and pre-tested questionnaire was used to collect data from smallholder tea farmers through face to face interview. Multistage sampling procedure was employed to contact 155 respondents. The study used Heckman two stage model to identify factors that determine tea growers’ choice of marketing channel and sales volume decisions once a marketing channel has been selected. The results showed that age, gender, education in years, farming years and second payments significantly affected the participation in marketing channel. Tea production, farming years, age and second payment significantly affected the intensity of participation.  The results of the study provide an insights to the policy makers on what needs to be done to promote and improve farmer-market linkages hence improve farmers’ incomes from their farming and marketing activities. Keywords: Tea, Marketing channel, socioeconomic factors