Homa Bay County has great potential in terms of the existing arable land, availability of water, human resources base, technological options as well as market growth opportunities. A majority of household engage in fishing and agriculture as a source of livelihood with previous studies indicating that an estimate of 60% engage in sweet potato production. Kasipul, Kabondo Kasipul and Ndhiwa sub-counties have a high potential for sweet potato production. However the abundant production has...
ABSTRACT Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) has been encouraging adoption of sustainable tea production, through FFS and RA certification, among small-scale tea producers west of Kenya‘s Rift Valley since 2006 and 2010 respectively. FFS was a methodology of choice because of its experiential and practical learning approach. Those organisations that had used FFS approach had reported it to be successful, whereas RA certification guarantees sustainable use of agricultural and forestry resour...
ABSTRACT In rural areas particularly arid and semi-arid lands (ASALs), smallholder farmers produce mainly under subsistence system due to poor access of market. Farmers in ASALs particularly in Laikipia County depend on horticultural crop production for their livelihood and as a major source of income and rural employment. The purpose of the study was to determine factors influencing choice of market facilitators and their impact on smallholder horticultural farmers’ livelihood. Primary dat...
ABSTRACT Wild foods comprise of all edible products that are found growing naturally in forests, woodlands or farms. They include both fauna and flora species that are consumed either as wholly or partly. This study was designed to investigate the role of wild foods to household income and food security at Mufindi district in Iringa region. Data were collected using both structured and non-structured interviews. Purposive sampling procedures were used to obtain six representative villages. A...
ABSTRACT Dairy ration formulation in Kenya is currently based on the singular objective of least cost (LCF) that only considers cost to the economic advantage of feed millers. The interest of dairy producers is milk profit above feed costs while regulatory authorities are interested in feed quality standards and environmental health. Industry stakeholder interests on feed processing and utilisation and critical feed formulation goals present challenges to sustainable dairy production. To bet...
ABSTRACT Kenya’s Agricultural Sector Development Strategy (ASDS), envisions a food secure and prosperous nation with the overall goal of the agricultural sector to achieve an average growth rate of 7 percent per year. The strategy has, among others, target to reduce food insecurity by 30 percent to surpass the MDGs by the year 2015. About 60 per cent of households in western Kenya live below poverty line an indication of a high proportion of the population without adequate quantity and qua...
EXTENDED ABSTRACT The preliminary experiment was done by using Jaffa orange variety to assess the effects of different concentrations of hexanal, calcium chloride and smoke treatment on physicochemical quality. Jaffa orange fruits were separately (i) dipped in hexanal at 0.01%, 0.02% and 0.04% volume/voume for five minutes (ii) dipped in calcium chloride 1%, 2% and 4% weight/volume for five minutes (iii) fruits were smoked by burning 0.5 kg, 1.0 kg and 1.5 kg of dry banana leaves (iv) Untre...
ABSTRACT Small ruminants provide very important genetic resources that can be exploited for continued improvements of the livelihoods of poor livestock keepers in the pastoral production system, particularly in the developing country situation, Kenya being one of them. Though important, the motivation of livestock keepers to hold and maintain particular AnGr in conditions of decreasing animal genetic resource base is imperfectly understood. Consequently, in an endeavour to improve the livelih...
ABSTRACT Vegetables remain an important source of nutrients in many parts of the world as they contain essential micronutrients, vitamins, antioxidants, and other health-related phytochemicals. They complement staple-based diets. Economically, vegetable production and marketing has a potential of high profit, employment, income generation and increasing commercialisation of the rural areas. However, vegetables are highly perishable and as such most actors in the vegetable value chain incur hi...
ABSTRACT This study aimed at assessing farmers’ adaptation mechanisms to climate change in Kilimanjaro region. Specifically, attention was devoted to examine farmers’ awareness and perception towards climate change; adaptation measures used and their influence on crop yield as well as factors which influence adoption of those strategies. The data were collected through household surveys and focused group discussions. A questionnaire was administered to a sample of 175 farming households...
ABSTRACT Recently, there has been emergence in the use of modern Information Communication Technologies (ICT) in the different operations of agrienterprises. This ranges from the provision of agricultural information to marketing of agricultural products through the use of ICT tools such as mobile phones, television and radio. Despite the potential of ICT tools to enhance efficiency in agrienterprises operations, little is known about the effect of ICT use on performance and farm income of sm...
Abstract Meaningful agricultural development in any society largely hinges on extension system in place. Agricultural extension assists rural people in the community through educational procedure in improving their farming methods and techniques, thus increasing their production efficiency, income, social and living standard. To bring this to pass requires continuous training of extension personnel in order to cope with the emerging roles cropping up as a result of developmental programmes e...
ABSTRACT A study was conducted at Tatton Agricultural Park (Egerton University) to determine inclusion levels and effects of milled mature pods of Prosopis juliflora on feed intake (FI), growth performance, feed conversion ratio (FCR), dressing % and weights of internal organs (liver, gizzard and heart) of finishing broilers. The nutrient composition of the pods was also determined. Experimental diets were formulated using milled mature Prosopis pods (MMPP) at varying levels and offered to br...
ABSTRACT This study was conducted to analyse beef cattle value chains so as to identify potential areas for intervention in order to improve livestock keepers’ access to markets in Longido and Monduli districts in Tanzania. The study was a cross sectional design. Data were collected from 191 beef cattle value chains actors using individuals and key informant interviews. The data collected were summarized using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) and Microsoft Excel. Sub-sector ma...
ABSTRACT This study assessed the extent to which rice producers from Maramvya irrigated scheme could raise their productivity and profitability if they efficiently use inputs in producing rice. To achieve this objective, simple random sampling was used to select 230 rice farmers in the study area and cross-sectional data were collected for season 2016/A. The collected data were subjected to analysis where output responsiveness with respect to each of the inputs, technical, allocative and eco...