Factors that influence the adoption of metal silo business among the trained artisans: A case of Embu, Homa Bay And Migori Counties, Kenya

Abstract

The Effective Grain Storage for Sustainable Livelihoods of African Farmers” project (EGSP) was piloted by CIMMYT in Malawi and Kenya through funding from SDC. The project aimed at fabricating metal silos by training local artisans who will make the silos locally available to the farmers. Though empirical findings from the implementation of a similar project in Central America reveals high and reliable profit potential on the side of the artisans, the adoption of the business opportunities provided by the silo making venture to the trained artisan in Kenya is significantly low. Informal project evaluations indicate only 30% of the trained artisans are practicing the business at their workshops. This study sought to assess the factors that influence the uptake of the metal silo business among the trained artisans. As its objectives, the study aimed to establish the relationship between the dependent variable, which is the „Adoption of the silo business‟ and the independent variables which are artisans‟ level of education, the artisans‟ main source of income and the income level as well as the age and level of experience of the artisans. The findings are hoped to be useful to CIMMYT as ex-post evaluation for EGSP pilot phase and for the replication phases and for other stakeholders particularly the public policy sector. The study employed an ex-post evaluation and descriptive survey designs and adopted a multinomial Logit regression model to analyse the factors of metal silo business adoption. It involved all the artisans from Embu, Homa Bay and Migori counties who were trained on how to fabricate metal silos. Data from the individual artisans was collected using a pretested questionnaire. SPSS was used for entering and managing field data and for descriptive and frequency analysis of quantitative data. STATA was used with regression models to identify the factors that determine the adoption of metals silo business among the trained artisans. The results of the survey indicate that a third of the artisans takes orders directly from individual farmers, grain traders, institutions, etc and makes metal silos at their own workshops, a third does not engage in metal silos business at all while a third is normally hired by the first category. The likelihood to make metal silos either at own workshop or as a hired artisan reduces with age while the same increases with years of experience in technical work. The likelihood to make silos at own workshops also increases with ownership of a workshop before training, running a workshop as the primary occupation and metal work as the main professional training for the artisans.