Monitoring And Evaluation Strategies, Management Support And Performance Of Dairy Primary Cooperative Societies In Murang’a County, Kenya

Abstract

Kenya’s development blue pint, vision 2030 recognizes the dairy subsector as one of the vehicles that will aid the achievements of the economic and social targets contained therein. Incorporation of dairy farmers into dairy commercialization has led rural communities to form into dairy primary cooperatives for better access to the markets. However, the performance of these dairy primary cooperatives has remained a challenge. In Murang’a County, the dairy primary cooperatives were initiated in 2012 by the county government with an overall goal of transforming subsistence dairy farming into a commercially oriented one to improve the living standards of the smallholder dairy farmers. The main aim of the study was to determine the influence of monitoring and evaluation strategies on the performance of dairy primary cooperatives registered with Murang’a County Creameries in Murang’a County and whether this relationship could be moderated by management support. A study approach combining both qualitative and quantitative aspects was used to ensure data source and methodological triangulation. A cross-sectional survey design, mainly post factor descriptive, observational and descriptive correlation surveys were used along with qualitative case study designs were used for information-rich data from multiple sources and respondents. A sample size of 276 respondents was selected using a probability proportionate simple random sampling for representativeness along with a non-probability purposive sampling method for the key informants. The primary and secondary data were collected using various pre-tested data collection tools. To analyze quantitative data, both descriptive and inferential statistics were used inclusively of arithmetic mean, standard deviation, Pearson product moment correlation, and regression coefficients. Qualitative data were thematically analyzed. To test for the study hypothesis, a paired sample t-test was used. To ensure that the study sample was from a normally distributed group, a normality test using Shapiro-Wilk test statistics was conducted while multicollineality was tested using variation inflation factor (VIF). Heteroscedansticity was minimized by making sure that the data used in hypothesis testing were approximately normal and accurately transformed after being tested for using Levenne’s statistics for equality of variances. The study established that the monitoring and evaluation strategies studied had a positive and significant influence on the performance of dairy primary cooperative societies though at variation strengths. Further management support was found to have a non-significant negative relationship with the dairy primary cooperative societies’ performance and with no potential to improve the prediction power of monitoring and evaluation strategies on the dairy primary cooperative societies’ performance. From the findings, the study recommends the county government to promote dairy primary cooperative societies’ towards commercializing dairy farming for maximum profits. The management team should involve stakeholders in the planning process, allocate enough resources for monitoring and evaluation activities and decide on the recipients of the findings. The Murang’a County Creameries board of management should develop a harmonized training curriculum for the monitoring and evaluation staff and conduct training workshops as a way of increasing their capacity. It should also consider recruiting management officials from within the county to enhance ownership. Further studies on dairy primary cooperative societies’ strategies in different contexts other than dairy primary cooperative societies would reveal new insights into the influence of the studied monitoring and evaluation strategies on performance.