Impact of contract farming on smallholder poultry farmers’ income in Kenya
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Date
2012-08Author
Wainaina, Priscilla W
Okello, Julius J
Nzuma, Jonathan
Language
enMetadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Contract farming is a form of vertical coordination largely aimed at correcting
the
market
failure associated with spot markets that arise due to imperfect information. However the impact
of contract
farming on the welfare of small
holder farmers
in Kenya
is not well understood.
While
some authors
have argued
that
contact farming
improves
access
to
ready markets
by smallholder
farmers, other
studies have suggested
that contract farming
lowers the
incomes of small
holder
farmers
because the
contractors
wield greater market
power
over
the farmers
.
Consequently, it
is seen as a blessing by some and a necessary evil by others.
This study uses a
propensity
score
matching technique to shed
light on the impact of contract farming on smallholder farmers.
The
study also examines the conditioners of participation in contract farming.
It uses data collected
from
180
smallholder poultry farmers stratified by participation in contract production. The
study
finds
that
,
on average
,
contracted farmers earned more
net revenue per bird compared to
the independent farmers
, by approximately 27 percent,
and as such participating in contract
farming could improve the welfare of these small holder poultry farmers.
This finding suggests
that getting smallholder commercial
poultry farmers to participate in contract farming can help
improve their welfare through increasing the net revenues from
these birds and thereof incomes
URI
http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstream/126196/2/Priscilla~2012.pdfhttp://hdl.handle.net/11295/81699
Citation
Wainaina etl:(IAAE) Triennial Conference, Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil, 18 - 24 August, 2012Publisher
University of Nairobi