We identify and map critical spatial factors grouped into natural, human, social, financial and physical capital assets, which largely determine livelihood options, strategies and welfare of ...agro-pastoral communities in a semi-arid district of southern Kenya. Our approach builds upon new, relatively high-resolution spatial poverty data and refines participatory land-use mapping methods, making valuable information on natural and social resource availability and access useful for policy makers. While most poverty analyses focus on the household, we employ quantitative spatial data analysis methods to examine the spatial correlates of meso-, or community-level poverty incidence. The results suggest that variables influencing poverty levels in this district include pasture potential, livestock density, distance to a major town, road density, access to education, access to security, soil fertility and agricultural potential. Because of the participatory research process taken, these results are already feeding into both local- and national-level policy processes aimed at reducing poverty in Kenya.
Market access measures employed by economists and spatial analysts may not adequately capture local market or product-specific variation. Analysis is conducted on the effects of market access on two ...commodities in the Kenyan highlands: milk and bean seeds. Both simple and composite measures of market access are applied to spatial price formation models to create spatial price decay functions in the context of household-specific transaction costs. Composite measures of market access include negative exponential (using travel time or distance as cost) and gravity measures. The results demonstrate that the effects of market access differ significantly depending on the particular goods of interest. Simple measures of market access have the advantage of being more easily interpretable, and should therefore be preferred when communicating research outputs to the non-scientific community, especially decision-makers. The implications are that research addressing commodity-specific development questions needs to look beyond generic measures of market access and develop tailored measures that reflect the characteristics of the commodity system of interest. The analysis also demonstrates that spatial price formation can be used to generate potentially more accurate measures of unit-distance marketing costs.
Have recent reforms improved market functioning in African economies? This article examines how the raw milk market in western and central Kenya has developed after the dairy sector liberalisation in ...1992 by using panel data of 862 rural households. From the late 1990s to 2004, the proportion of rural households who sold milk increased from 37 to 51%. During the same period, the proportion of households who sold milk to traders more than doubled, while it declined from 29 to 12% for those who sold milk to dairy cooperatives. On the basis of the price differentials between the farm gate and retail prices, we find that the functioning of the market improved between the late 1990s and 2004; in turn, the development of the milk market has increased the adoption of improved cows, resulting in higher milk sales.
The integrated food supply chains have emerged as the fastest growing and widely visible market phenomenon. Yet in most developing countries, small scale milk market agents and chains supplying fresh ...milk and traditionally processing dairy products play a major role. They are the key outlets for small holder dairy producers and are the main source of fresh milk supply for consumers. These traditional smallscale markets account for over 80 per cent of the marketed milk in many countries in South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America (Omore et al., 2004). In India too, more than 80 per cent of milk marketed still passes through these traditional milk marketing channels (Steven et al, 2008). The much hyped co-operative dairy development in India has also not been able to significantly affect the dominance of these traditional milk marketing channels. But, the functioning of the traditional milk market and its potential in income and employment generation has not been conceived properly in India. The understanding of the traditional milk marketing and processing chains are helpful in evolving policies and developmental strategies for creating an efficient milk marketing system. A study was planned in one of the backward states of India, namely Assam. In this state, 97 per cent of milk marketing is controlled by traditional milk market agents. (Kumar et al, 2007; Sirohi et al, 2009). The organised marketing and processing of milk in Assam remains insignificant. Formal milk pasteurisation and dairy product processing channels, both under co-operative and private sectors, account for hardly 3 per cent of the total locally marketed milk. The smallholder producers in the state have poor market access. The lack of alternative market options forces them to sell in the traditional market. In this backdrop, this study was undertaken with the objectives of (i) examining the costs and returns in traditional milk marketing and processing, (ii) estimating the milk producer's share in consumer rupee and marketing margins of different actors in the marketing chain, (iii) assessing the potential of traditional milk market in employment generation, and (iv) identifying the factors for scaling up the volume of business of the informal milk market agents in the state. The paper is organised as follows. Section II presents the data and methodology used in the study. The economics of traditional milk marketing and processing are discussed in Section III. Section IV deliberates on the potential of employment generation in the traditional milk market, while important determinants of the volume of milk handled by the traditional milk market agents have been discussed in Section V. The last section draws the conclusion and policy implications of the study.
This survey used data from the East Africa Dairy Development project which utilizes farmer based organizations to evaluate whether producer organizations have been efficiently used by the project to ...impact on inputs use and income. Propensity score matching results show that project participants generated higher dairy revenues than non-participants. They also spent more on hired labour and animal breeding and had a higher probability of having improved breeds. The findings have important implications for development agents and policy makers seeking productivity improvement and increased market participation of poor smallholder dairy farmers as establishment and growth of producer organizations.
The study investigates the role of technology adoption and collective action in the demand for credit among dairy farmers in rural Tanzania. Using survey data from four districts in Tanga and ...Morogoro regions, the incidence of credit is found to be seven percent. Logit and tobit models based on a conceptual framework that assumes endogenously determined interest rates and
nonseparability of production and consumption credit, are applied to the data. Interest rates are found to be exogenous and statistically insignificant in the demand for credit. The logit model shows collective action to positively influence the decision to borrow, but technology adoption is
insignificant. From the tobit model, both collective action and technology adoption positively influence the amount of funds borrowed. We use these results to examine the observed failure of rural savings and credit cooperative societies to lend to smallholder dairy farmers and livestock
keepers in general in Tanzania.
Have recent reforms improved market functioning in African economies? This article examines how the raw milk market in western and central Kenya has developed after the dairy sector liberalisation in ...1992 by using panel data of 862 rural households. From the late 1990s to 2004, the proportion of rural households who sold milk increased from 37 to 51%. During the same period, the proportion of households who sold milk to traders more than doubled, while it declined from 29 to 12% for those who sold milk to dairy cooperatives. On the basis of the price differentials between the farm gate and retail prices, we find that the functioning of the market improved between the late 1990s and 2004; in turn, the development of the milk market has increased the adoption of improved cows, resulting in higher milk sales. Copyright 2010 The author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Centre for the Study of African Economies. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org, Oxford University Press.
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