Socio-economic Factors That Determine Final Market Demand for Fish and Chevon Meat in Marsabit County

Abstract

This research project focused on investigating the social and economic factors informing the end-use demand for goat meat and fish in Kenya’s acutely food insecure arid and semi-arid lands (ASALs) of the north, using Marsabit County as a case study. This particular study utilizes variables which are not included in the Engel’s Law in empirical analyses of food consumption in low-income households. The study collected primary data using stratified sampling in three of the most populous centres in the county. For both fish and goat meat, the study outlined the existing customer segments, consumer preferences, per capita consumption and household decision-making mechanisms. From the data that was collected, the findings revealed that there is a positive correlation between tastes, preferences and income level with meat consumption. High income households are indifferent in their consumption of both fish and goat meat regardless of changes in prices. Increase in both fish and goat meat prices and and an increase in the number of customers in the market have a negative impact on consumption of fish. All consumer segments are indifferent in their consumption of goat meat regardless of socio-demographic characteristics. However, consumption of meat products would not increase significantly even if you increased the family size (M=2.33, SD=1.184). It was also noted that consumption of goat meat is higher than that of fish (M=2.5, SD=1.156) and that fish is eaten less often (M=2.6, SD=1.347). With data from this study, it was observed that access to market information, market organization and infrastructure have a direct impact on end-market demand for fish and goat meat. Therefore, there is need for capacity building that is geared towards information sharing between traders, market management and consumers. Keywords: Socio-economics, arid and semi-arid lands (ASALs), final market demand, market interventions, and climate change.