Dairy input agri-entrepreneurs’ practices and their effect on inputs market participation by smallholder farmers in Tanzania

Dairy productivity per cow remains lower than the production ability amid increasing population. Among major reasons for this is the lower uptake of improved dairy inputs by smallholder dairy farmers. We characterized dairy input providers' business practices using Latent class analysis (LCA) and determined the effect of these business practices on the uptake of inputs by smallholder dairy farmers in Tanga and Kilimanjaro regions using OLS. From LCA, Bayesian Information Criteria (BIC) revealed a 3-class model as the most parsimonious and best fit (2153.071). The latent class (LC) membership of the input/service entrepreneurs for classes I, II, and III was 37.6% (35), 9.7% (9), and 52.7% (49), respectively. Using item response probabilities, we classified class I, II and III as ‘High business activities and business promotional practices’, ‘Low business activities, medium business promotional activities’, and ‘Medium business activities, Low business promotional activities’. Extension services provision was significant across all the classes with probability values greater than 0.5. The OLS model revealed that LC I and II were significant at 1% while LC III was significant at 5%. Education level and Moshi Rural District were negatively significant. Technical training of input entrepreneurs and capacity building on bundling relevant information alongside inputs is necessary for knowledge sharing with farmers. Networking, collaborations, and alliances among input/service entrepreneurs and between entrepreneurs and dairy farmers should be fostered for adequacy in technical information sharing and connecting farmers to other input suppliers. There is need for entrepreneurs to invest in rural areas and improve information and input access by the farmers. The study explored private dairy entrepreneurs as alternative extension services providers as a business strategy to enhance uptake of improved inputs by smallholder farmers. This study is relevant in making workable decisions towards implementing programmes geared towards increasing the improved input uptake in developing countries

Opportunity cost of adopting improved planted forage: Evidence from the adoption of Brachiaria grass among smallholder dairy farmers in Kenya

Current global trends in population growth, urbanisation and a growing middle-class economy have resulted in increased demand for livestock and products, and more so dairy products. This necessitates the need for livestock producers to respond to the growing demand. However, farmers’ efforts are aggravated by the effects of climate change. The need arises for a sustainable source of fodder to alleviate the situation, while at the same time offering farmers other opportunities to participate in fodder markets through the adoption of climate-smart Brachiaria grass. In this article, the opportunity cost of producing Brachiaria in favour of Napier grass is estimated using household survey data obtained from dairy farmers in Kenya’s drier agro-ecological zones. The study utilised full-information endogenous switching regression to compute the opportunity cost by comparing the gross margins generated from Napier and Brachiaria grass. The findings reveal that dairy farmers face a higher opportunity cost of their fodder land by producing Napier in favour of Brachiaria, given by the transitional heterogeneity of USD 79.74. Furthermore, the adoption of Brachiaria is determined by the age and experience of farmers in fodder production, by herd size, breed type, perception of milk productivity, group membership, and access to extension services. The results highlight the need for widespread adoption through extension and technical support to farmers. This would also enable farmers to participate in fodder markets and support their livelihood