Evaluation of Factors Influencing Access to Credit Financial Services: Evidence from Smallholder Farmers in Eastern Region of Kenya

The access to credit financial services by the rural smallholder farmers in many occasions has revolutionized the rural development in a sustainable manner, and has greatly contributed to household food security and poverty reduction. This study sought to establish the main factors that affect smallholder farmers’ access to credit financial services in the Eastern region of Kenya using logistic regression model. The marginal effects results indicated that, education level, main occupation, and group membership were statistically significant with positive effects on access to credit financial services. However, household income was found to be significant with negative effects on access to credit financial services. Overall, this paper concludes with implication for policy to establish credit/loans offices close to farmers in order to reduce lending procedures, risks, and educate them on perceptions on loan repayment. Moreover, the government should enhance the development of local credit and distribution systems as well as enforcement of credit input services in form of in-kind lending to reduce fungibility into consumption expenditures. Finally, there is an urgent need for effective insurance training programs to mitigate the risks in farming, as well as financial literacy programs to familiarize smallholder farmers with the skills required to effectively understand, assess and utilize credit financial services towards enhancing their agricultural activities. Keywords: Evaluation; Smallholders; Credit Access; Financial Services; Eastern region; Keny

<b>Chemical composition and antimicrobial activity of the essential oil of <i>Satureja biflora</i> (Lamiaceae) </b>

Hydro-distilled essential oil from <i>Satureja biflora</i> (Lamiaceae) growing in Kenya was analysed by gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and also evaluated for antimicrobial activity. Twenty two compounds which constitute 99.29 % of the total oil were identified. The oil was dominated by monoterpenes, which accounted for 62.02 % of the oil. This monoterpene fraction was characterized by a high percentage of linalool (50.60 %) such that this <i>Satureja</i> species can be classified as the linalool chemotype. The other major monoterpenes were α-terpineol (2.80 %), β-ocimene (2.25 %), β-pinene (1.96 %) and <i>cis</i>-linalool oxide (1.91 %). Sesquiterpenes present in fairly good amounts are germacrene D (10.63 %), α-cadinol (4.53 %), β-bourbonene (2.33 %), δ-cadinene (2.19 %), τ-cadinol (2.17 %), endo-1-bourbonanol (2.14 %) and β-caryophyllene (1.98 %). Aliphatic alcohols and acids accounted for 7.23 % of the oil, of which the major one was linoleic acid (4.48 %). The oil was screened for antimicrobial activity against both gram-positive (<i>Staphylococcus aureus</i>, <i>Bacillus ssp. </i>) and gram-negative (<i>Escherichia coli</i>, <i>Pseudomonas aeruginosa</i>, <i>Salmonella typhi</i>, <i>Klebsiella pheumoniae</i>, <i>Proteus mirabilis</i>) bacteria and a pathogenic fungus (<i>Candida albicans</i>). To the best of our knowledge nothing concerning the chemical composition and biological activity of the essential oil of <i>S. biflora</i> has been reported

Developing generic tools for characterizing agricultural systems for climate and global change studies (IMPACTlite - phase 2). Report to CCAFS

Standard methods are needed to collect data to evaluate the performance of agricultural systems. Standardization allows comparisons across systems, and potentially the extrapolation of recommendations to similar development domains. The Integrated Modelling Platform for Mixed Animal Crop Systems (IMPACT, Herrero et al., 2007) is a data collection protocol and computer software tool designed to gather minimum datasets in smallholder crop-livestock systems. The protocol collects information ranging from household composition to crop and livestock production to household food consumption and household assets. Although IMPACTS s datasets are detailed to conduct a wide range of crop-livestock systems analysis, the data collection on the field proved to be time and resources demanding. The protocol works in monthly time steps i.e., most of the data is collected per month, thus it takes considerable time to complete an interview. The printed forms comprise over 30 different templates that resemble the screens in the software, and although this could speed up data entry, its use on the field for data collection often tends to be inoperative