| dc.description.abstract | Agriculture like other forms of investment in human capital, can contribute to economic development and social progress. Justification of this investment is that Agriculture is not only the backbone of this country but, it also employers 80% of its people. Beekeeping is a unique primary industry. Honey is medicine, food and a cash income that does not add burden on the land. The crop declines have caused an alarm to experts globally. China, Argentina, Canada, Mexico, Germany and United states has reported high decline in the past decade. Africa countries like Ethiopia. Rwanda and also Kenya has not been unexceptional since it has lost 80010 of its potential. The study was motivated by the fact that despite high level of potentiality in this area to yield 300 metric tonnes of honey, only 10 metric tonnes are produced. There is a world cry in honey decline. Kenya has a potential of producing 100,000 metric tonnes of honey annually, but only 20% of the potential is trapped.
The objective of the study was to investigate factor influencing honey production that is: Demographic characteristics of beekeeping farmers; environmental management practices; advisory support given to farmers and training of bee keeping. The study employed the use of descriptive research design. The researcher used Yamane sampling table to select sample size of the whole population, therefore totaling to 90 bee farmers respondents in the whole district.
To get sample size in each stratum, Yamane formula was employed. Stratified random sampling techniques was used to select 30 bee farmers each out of the three strata population, 10% of target population in each stratum was deemed proper. Systematic sampling was adopted in this research. The most practical way of sampling was to select every 10th item on a list. An element of randomness was introduced into this kind of sampling, in systematic sampling only the first number is selected randomly and the remaining units of the sample are selected at fixed intervals.
The tenth of every 10th item on the list of bee keepers was randomly selected, and then every 10th item from the list of farmers in each stratum was picked. The interview schedule was used to supplement information which may have been left out by questionnaires. Data from office records were analyzed to provide additional information. The researcher sought to ensure content validity with the assistance of the supervisor and other research experts in the university to assess the relevance of the research tools against the objectives used in this study. Data collected was coded and analyzed using descriptive statistics such as percentage and then presented in form of frequency distribution tables.
The findings releaved that demograpic characteristics influence production of honey since there was sex disparities in honey production as male produced more kilograms than female.Mature farmers aged 36 years and above produced large amount of honey. Environmental magement practices that is,overgrazing and agroforestry influenced production of honey as a result of poor grazing habits and lack of mix farming. Poor timing of pesticides application left bees dead.Most farmers had not received advisory services and training. The study recommended that the government should take intiative through the Ministry of Livestok to employ more personnels in the extentsion to be able reach and serve all bee farmers in the district and as a result dependent variable would influence the independent variables. | en_US |
