An assessment of the role of different cadres of animal health service providers in animal health service delivery in Kiambu district, Kenya.

Abstract

This study was found necessary due to the changing nature of the veterinary services in Kenya whereby, hitherto, the delivery of veterinary services had been solely dependent on the government until some components were privatised. Privatisation was ad hoc as there were no policies in place to ensure quality of the services provided. The overall objective of the study was therefore to assess the role of private animal health service providers in the provision of veterinary services in Kiambu District, Kenya. The specific objectives were: 1) To identify and categorise the various ways farmers access veterinary services in Kiambu District, Central Kenya; 2) To identify the problems experienced by veterinary practitioners and farmers in the animal health service delivery in the district; and 3) To identify the categories of veterinary service providers most frequently consulted by farmers and the reasons behind it. The study was conducted in Kiambu District, Kenya. The district is located in Central Province. A total of 125 farmers and 21 animal health service providers were randomly selected for the study. All data on household characteristics and animal health service providers was obtained through questionnaires, which were administered via personal interviews to the selected farmers and the animal health service providers. The data was entered and managed in MS Excel. The data was then exported to SPSS Statistical Software for statistical analysis on animal health service providers and household characteristics. A high percentage (86.4%) of Kiambu farmers consider livestock as their main source of income, with 36% of farmers scoring it as the main source while 50.4% practised mixed farming. About 66.4% of the farmers interviewed were in agreement that over half of their household incomes were derived from livestock. All this demonstrates the importance of livestock to the lives of the Kiambu people. Kiambu farmers interviewed cited various constraints which they face in accessing of veterinary services. Affordability topped the list with 48.8% (61/125) of the respondents citing poverty as the greatest problem hindering their access to veterinary services. Other reasons cited were infrastructure (28.8%; 36/125 of respondents), inadequate qualified personnel (11.2%; 14/125) of the interviewed farmers indicated there was no constraints at all. The animal health problems mostly encountered by the farmers in the district included mastitis, tickbome diseases, reproductive diseases and helminthosis in that order. About 52.8% (66/125) of the farmers interviewed singled out mastitis as the most important disease in their animals, 24% (30/125) identified tickbome diseases, 14.4% (18/125) reproductive diseases and 8.8% (11/125) talked of helminth os is. Paraveterinarians, veterinarians, and the nearest agrovets attendants were identified as the categories providing veterinary services in Kiambu District. The results show that paraveterinarians serve the largest percentage of the farmers in Kiambu District (56.8%). Among the reasons given for this were that they were readily available and charged less compared to veterinarians. This can be attributed to the high number of animal health assistants (AHTs) released each year into the market from Animal Health and Industry Training Institutes (AHITIs). Poverty among the farmers was identified by most animal health service providers (38.1%; 8/21) as a major problem such that their clients could not afford their services. This was closely followed by debts whereby 28.6% (6/21) of the animal heath service providers talked of incurred debts after the service had been rendered. The two problems above are closely intertwined. Other problems cited were unfair competition (19%; 4121 of the animal health service providers) and poor policies from the Government (14.3%; 3/21).