Dairy farming plays a major role in the Kenyan agricultural sector as it is dominated by smallholder farmers who contribute approximately 80 per cent of the total milk production. In Kinangop Sub County, there are many credit service providers however, not all smallholder dairy farmers have benefited from such services, instead smallholder dairy farmers have continued to experience challenges such as limited access to financial services. This study therefore analyzed the determinants of credit access among smallholder dairy farmers in Kinangop Sub-County using a binary logistic regression model. Following this, the marginal effects of the predictor variables on the likelihood of accessing credit were estimated. A total of 230 respondents were sampled from a population of 35,840 smallholder dairy farmers using both stratified and simple random sampling techniques and both structured and semi structured questionnaires were used to collect data. The study adopted descriptive survey research design. Descriptive analysis revealed that majority: 59.57% of smallholder dairy farmers were males, 69.57% were married and had a mean age of 39.4 years. The average household size was 4 members per household. Formal schooling was also attained by the respondents, majority having an average of about 8 years of schooling. On average farmers had 2 dairy cattle per household, produced 341litres of milk per month and had 11 years of farming. The binary logistic regression analysis and the marginal effect calculation revealed marital status, years of schooling, savings frequency, dairy farming, primary occupation, financial education, association membership and number of dairy cattle as the significant determinants of credit access. The study therefore concluded that there were significant determinants of credit access in the study area and recommended that formulating policies geared towards enhancing educational attainment of farmers would be vital in enhancing credit accessibility to farmers in the study area. There is also need for the Government and other stakeholders to encourage dairy farmers to join farmer based associations and eliminate stringent collateral barriers and bureaucracies that tend to discourage smallholder dairy farmers from accessing and participating in different credit schemes. KEY WORDS: Credit access, Determinants, smallholder dairy farmers, Kinangop Sub-County.
Selection of appropriate markets is a major challenge facing smallholder dairy farmers in Kenya. This study therefore sought to understand factors influencing milk marketing channel choices among smallholder dairy farmers in Kinangop Sub County. Data from a sample of 230 smallholder dairy farmers was collected using structured questionnaires and analysed using both descriptive and inferential statistical methods. The study identified three marketing channels namely; milk processors (46.09) %, milk bars (32.61) % and direct sales (21.3) %. Similarly, years of schooling (p≤0.1), on-farm income (p≤0.1) and milk output (p≤0.01) were statistically significantly different across the three marketing channels. The average farm gate price was kes 32.6 per litre. From the multinomial logistic regression, marital status, extension access, association membership, mode of payment and transport ownership significantly influenced marketing channels. Further results showed that majority (53.48) % of farmers never had access to market information. The study therefore recommended policies geared towards enhancing more years of formal education and market intelligence so as to facilitate selection of appropriate marketing channels, more training on dairy husbandry practices with the aim of increasing milk output, facilitate access to transport facilities so as to enhance milk delivery to milk collection centres and a review of payment arrangements between milk processors and farmers so as to avoid the problem of delayed payments to farmers.
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