How smallholder dairy systems in Kenya contribute to food security and poverty alleviation: results of recent collaborative studies

Kenya has the largest dairy sub-sector in eastern and southern Africa making available annually an estimated 85-90 litres of liquid milk equivalent per capita based primarily upon well-established market-oriented smallholder dairy systems. As a result dairying (the production of milk for the market) has become a very significant source of income and food for an estimated 625,000 smallholder producer households and for those involved in the marketing of milk, in total some 25% of all households. In addition dairying plays a crucial role in sustaining smallholder crop-dairy systems through its contributions to nutrient cycling. It is these smallholder crop-dairy systems, generally based on the cropping of the staple food, maize, that dominate marketed dairy production and that underpin the competitiveness of smallholder dairying in Kenya. In order to better understand Kenya’s dairy sub-sector and to identify constraints to, and opportunities for, improving smallholder dairying’s contribution to poverty alleviation and to increased food security, a series of sequential studies have been carried out by the Ministry of Agriculture, the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute and the International Livestock Research Institute through the Smallholder Dairy (R&D) Project, funded by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID). The research has taken a holistic market-oriented production-to-consumption approach with interdisciplinary teams evaluating dairy systems and the interactions of economics, policy, agro-ecology and technology that define their structure. Within the general framework described through an appraisal of the national dairy industry, detailed analyses of the marketing and production systems have identified promising policy, institutional and technological interventions, some of which are being tested. The results of the studies are presented and their implications for poverty alleviation and food security are discussed

Fodder legumes technology and farmer to farmer extension: a case of Desmodium and Calliandra in central Kenya

Adoption studies on fodders legume technologies have shown that spread of the technology is significantly enhanced by informal methods of dissemination especially farmer-to-farmer extension. It is not known which type of farmers are involved in this dissemination. The objective of this study was to identify farm and farmer characteristics that influence farmer-to farmer extension hence identify the type of farmers that can disseminate fodder legume technologies. A random sample of 130 farmers who had been given calliandra in central Kenya responded to a structured questionnaire. Information collected included farm and farmer characteristics and the number of farmers the original farmer had given Calliandra outside the original group. A tobit model was used to analyze the data to get the magnitude of the effects of factors affecting the probability and the intensity of giving out the fodder. Results showed that farmers with positions in farmer groups** , community responsibility**, larger amounts of desmodium on the their farms** , more years of the fodder on their farms***; low access to markets* and off farm income* , were positively involved in spread of the fodder legume. It was recommended that this type of farmers be targeted with support to increase spread of the technology

Factors influencing farmer-to-farmer extension of forage legume technology

Forage legumes have been introduced to farmers in Central Kenya between 1980 and 2002 through various Institutional and Projects’ efforts. The adoption rate of these forages among farmers has been found to be rather low, with the NDDP reporting only 1.9 % of farms surveyed and an ICRAF report indicating that the technology was only reaching 1 % of smallholder farms. An evaluation of adoption of Calliandra and Desmodium was conducted to identify farm characteristics affecting the likelihood of sharing of Desmodium and Calliandra technologies as well as to characterise the spread or diffusion of the technology from the original contact groups and the effect of distance from those groups. Three groups of farmers were approached. A first generation who received planting material from the distributors, a second generation who received planting materials from the former, and a randomly selected group of farmers at various distances from the first contacts. Informal discussions were held with the farmers and formal questionnaires filled. Out of the 133 first generation farmers contacted 64.7% still had Desmodium and 89.5% still had Calliandra. More farms in the contact sub-locations had the plants than the sub-locations further away. The small sample size of those with the forages could not allow effect of distance to be worked out. Tobit estimates of effects of farmer attributes influencing sharing of planting materials shows that the status of the household head in the community positively affected the likelihood of giving out planting material. The technology has a rather slow spread as indicated by percentages of farms with the forages. For better adoption and spread proponents of the technology should have the technology introduced to farmers who have substantial positions in farmer groups or have been bestowed community responsibility

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