Strategies Adopted to Deal With Challenges Affecting Firms in Kajiado Livestock Market

Abstract

The livestock sub-sector of the agricultural sector is an important global player with significant and wide-ranging social, economic and environmental impacts. Worldwide, livestock production employs 1.3 billion people, providing livelihoods for a billion of the world’s poor. It also accounts for 40 per cent of the global agricultural GDP, (Steinford, 2007). In Kajiado, livestock production and marketing is the main economic activity, with about 70 per cent of the people depending on livestock and livestock products. Although livestock and their products are considered high value commodities and hence expected to fetch good prices in the markets, this is not the case for pastoralists, as observed by (Taylor et al 2014). Due to challenges posed by the external environment, such as political, economic, social cultural ecological and legal factors, the pastoralists are all work but little pay. The result is heartbroken producer pastoralists producing less for the market putting at risk those that depend on these commodities. The objectives of the study therefore were to understand challenges faced by livestock firms and to apply strategies to mitigate these challenges to ensure a vibrant sector for all players. A descriptive survey was used and a sample of 50 per cent out 117 of the entire population was under study. Simple random method was used to compute the sample size. Primary data was collected using semi structured questionnaires. The data was then analyzed using descriptive statistics by way of graphs, pie-charts and measures of central tendency. From the results, the researcher found out that firms are highly affected by the dry season which had a mean of 4.66.The highest adopted strategies was adoption of trading blocks within the firms.