Analysis of the Nature and Level of Social Capital in Smallholder Grain Farmers Marketing Groups in Kenya

Abstract

Bridging and bonding social capital has been known to widen the benefits of collective action. Data drawn from 100 smallholder grain farmers groups in Mt. Kenya region was used to measure three dimensions of bonding social capital namely: relational, cognitive and structure. Social capital results indicated that the groups’ bonding social capital was relatively high and equal as indicated by strong close connections, trust among members and sharing a common vision. However, the groups varied significantly (p≤0.1) in their level of bridging social capital where high performing groups in collective grain marketing had the highest average score (0.88), followed by average groups (0.44) and then low groups had the least (0.35). This indicates that bridging social capital could have had a positive and significant influence on group grain marketing performance. This shows that strong bridging social capital embedded within a group with strong bonding social capital fosters more successful collective action. Keywords: Bridging social capital, bonding social capital, farmer groups, Kenya DOI: 10.7176/JEP/11-24-04 Publication date: December 31st 202