Assessing the Technical Efficiency of Smallholder Dairy Farming in Kiambu County

Registration ID: IJNRD_204843

Published ID: IJNRD2309069

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Davies. N. Tanyassis, Ibrahim Macharia , Lucy Wangare

Technical efficiency, stochastic frontier, smallholder dairy farmers

Kenya boasts one of the most impressive and advanced dairy industries in Sub-Saharan Africa that contributes about 12% to the national gross domestic product (GDP) and 42% to the agricultural GDP (Victor et al., 2022). The industry is mainly dominated by small holder farmers, who make up 80% of the 1.8 million dairy farmers that are in Kenya (Okello et al., 2021) most of whom come from the Central and Rift Valley provinces as these areas lie in suitable agro-ecological environments for dairy farming. Milk is primarily produced by smallholder dairy farmers under three main systems of production; open grazing, zero grazing and semi-zero grazing. Due to increasing urbanization, rising incomes and population growth, domestic and regional demand for milk is growing. This ever-increasing demand for dairy products presents smallholder farmers with a huge market opportunity. To meet this rising demand, it requires that farmers at the minimum undertake actions to boost their productivity and improve their efficiency. As a result, this study was undertaken to empirically estimate determinants of technical efficiency by applying Cobb-Douglass Stochastic frontier production (CD-SFP), and used a two-limit Tobit Model to evaluate the sources of inefficiencies. A cross-section survey was conducted to collect data on demographic and production factors from 398 small-holder dairy farmers in Kiambu County. The study achieved a 91.5% response rate, having received household surveys from 364 smallholder dairy farmers. The Estimations from the CD-SFP model showed that labour, feed, and herd size all had significant effects on milk yields. The estimates of coefficients of other explanatory variables of stochastic frontier production function (i.e. number of lactating cows, average daily cost of purchased supplements, average daily health/veterinary expenditure and average amount of water consumed daily) are found to influence amount of milk produced positively. The results showed that the average technical efficiency of farmers was 84.69%, with the majority of farmers achieving TE of 80% or higher and none achieving TE of 100%. The results revealed that technical efficiency was mostly influenced by years of learning and access to extension services. Despite the inefficiencies, the findings showed that there is still potential for small-scale dairy farmers in Kiambu to increase their productivity by utilizing current technology and resources. The increasing return to scale revealed that farmers use resources reasonably efficiently and that milk production may improve if inputs were increased. The study suggests promoting strategies to increase the availability of informal education among dairy farmers, which can be leveraged to make extension services more effective. This will help improve the adoption of new technologies in the sector. Efforts should be made to enhance the bureaucratic milieu for the provision of extension services as this can enhance milk yields and productivity.

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Davies. N. Tanyassis, Ibrahim Macharia , & Lucy Wangare (September-2023). Assessing the Technical Efficiency of Smallholder Dairy Farming in Kiambu County . INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF NOVEL RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT, 8(9), a572-a579. https://ijnrd.org/papers/IJNRD2309069.pdf

Volume 8 Issue 9, September-2023

Pages : a572-a579

Paper Reg. ID: IJNRD_204843

Published Paper Id: IJNRD2309069

Downloads: 000122255

Research Area: Science

Author Type: Foreign Author

Country: Langata, Nairobi, Kenya

Published Paper PDF: https://ijnrd.org/papers/IJNRD2309069.pdf

Published Paper URL: https://ijnrd.org/viewpaperforall?paper=IJNRD2309069

Journal Name: INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF NOVEL RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT(IJNRD)

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