Association Between Duration of Community-based Group Membership and Sustainable Livelihoods for Kenyan Women Dairy Farmers

Abstract

. Association between duration of community-based group membership and sustainable livelihoods for Kenyan women dairy farmers. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development, 3(1) AbstractKenyan community leaders called for strengthened sustainable livelihoods for farmers and in 1992 formed a self-help dairy group that was reorganized in 2009 to form the Wakulima Dairy Ltd. (WDL). At WDL, members sell surplus milk to the dairy and, through nongovernmental organization (NGO) partnerships, receive training to enhance dairy farm productivity. As a result, higher milk production has been reported; however, data are lacking on sustainability and livelihood outcomes of dairy training for women farmers. To inform future projects and interventions, our study objectives were to determine the relationships between dairy group membership and duration of membership, sustainable livelihood assets, household income, and food security. We thus conducted a cross-sectional survey of 88 WDL members (among four membership duration groups) and 23 nonmember farmers. Milk production and herd size were higher for greater-thanthree-year members compared to nonmembers and one-to-three-year members. The proportion of households with an income from dairy of greater than 5,000 ksh/month (ranging from 0 to 40 percent), food security (ranging from 4 to 30 percent), and number of improved household characteristics

Associations of diet quality with dairy group membership, membership duration and non-membership for Kenyan farm women and children: a comparative study

“…Consumption of less milk than promoted ('two cups daily') by member children may be due, in part, to limits in the amount of tea a child can consume, and reinforces the need to promote milk consumption. Milk intake from the 24 h recall was lower than our reported average percapita household milk availability (0?6 l/person per d) (26) , which suggests that average per-capita household milk availability may overestimate individual milk consumption when assessing the impact of dairy intensification. This difference may be explained by uneven intra-household allocation, sharing milk or tea with visitors and neighbours, or using milk for calf rearing.…”

Effect of nutrition education and dairy group membership on nutrition knowledge, practices and diet quality for rural Kenyan farm women

“…Belonging to WDL enables the women to purchase dry staples (for example, maize meal, wheat flour, cooking fat) on credit. Additional details of the agroecology and demographics are in VanLeeuwen [14] and Walton [15]. In 2008, WDL members included approximately 6000 independent farm families who lived throughout the Mukerwe-ini Division (population 80,000).…”

“…Stemming from these efforts, significant improvements in dairy animal feeding, reproduction, mastitis control, [14] and milk production were reported [15]. As well, WDL members had higher dairy income, greater household food security, consumed more milk, and had better quality homes, water access and social support compared to non-members [16].…”

“…The researcher was responsible to record the translated responses on the prepared survey document. Pre-intervention, household socio-demographic and food security data were collected using pre-tested questionnaires [15].…”

“…Selection of the study group was detailed in a previous study [15]. Briefly, the study group included 100 women plus ten percent oversampling, from four dairy-membership duration categories (1-3, 4-6, 7-9 and 10+ years; n=4x22) and non-members (n=23).…”