The primary objective of this study is to examine the effect of farm size on economic efficiency among wheat producers and to suggest ways to improve wheat production in the country. Specifically, the study attempts to estimate the levels of technical, allocative, and economic efficiencies among the sampled 130 large and small scale wheat producers in Nakuru District. The social-economic factors that influence economic efficiency in wheat production have also been determined. Results indicate that the mean technical, allocative, and economic efficiency indices of small scale wheat farmers are 85%, 96%, and 84%, respectively. The corresponding figures for the large scale farmers are 91%, 94%, and 88%, respectively. The number of years of school a farmer has had in formal education, distance to extension advice, and the size of the farm have strong influence on the efficiency levels. The relatively high levels of technical efficiency among the small scale farmers defy the notion that wheat can only be efficiently produced by the large scale farmers.
The Contraceptive Prevalence Rate for West Pokot County is estimated to be at a low of 23% compared to the national prevalence which stands at 43%. This analytic cross sectional study was aimed at establishing the male factors associated with family planning in West Pokot County, Kenya. A total of 266 married men were involved and household was the unit of analysis. The findings of this study demonstrated that 48% of the respondents were not involved at all in family planning and only 6% of men were using a family planning method. The age of respondents, educational level, number of children, and type of marriage, knowledge and ease of access to family planning services were all significantly associated with male involvement. Having no education made a man 89% less likely to be highly involved in family planning (OD 0.117; 95% CI: 0.03-0.454). The study concludes that the level of male involvement in family planning in the county is still low despite interventions both by the government and other nongovernmental organizations. Therefore, more efforts should be made to improve education standards especially for men and to reorient family planning services to make them more accessible to men.
The Kenyan drylands, which make up about 84 % of Kenya's total land surface, support about 8 million Kenyans with animal husbandry as the main source of livelihood. The livestock subsector in these dry areas accounts for over 70 % of local family income, as well as 10 % of the country's gross domestic product (GDP) and 50 % of its agricultural GDP (Government of Kenya, 2012). Yet despite this sector's significant contribution to the economy, these dryland areas, especially in northern Kenya, have been undermined by systematic marginalisation, poor infrastructure and services, and persistent community conflicts and raids. At the same time, the threats from persistent droughts have escalated, with Northern Kenya recording 28 major droughts in the past 100 years and 4 in just the last 10 years, and given the changing global climate, this trend is likely to continue or even worsen. These recurrent droughts and lack of supporting infrastructure have resulted in increased loss of livestock, leading to income loss that has rendered the pastoralists vulnerable to poverty. In this study, we use five waves of household panel data collected in the Marsabit district of northern Kenya, to analyse the patterns of livelihood sources and poverty among pastoralists in that area. We estimate income poverty using imputed household income relative to the adjusted poverty line and asset poverty using a regression-based asset index and tropical livestock units (TLU) per capita. Our results indicate that keeping livestock is still the pastoralists' main source of livelihood, although there is a notable trend of increasing livelihood diversification, especially among livestock-poor households. The majority of households (over 70 %) are both income and livestock poor with few having escaped poverty within the five-year study period. Disaggregating income and asset poverty also reveals an increasing trend of both structurally poor and stochastically nonpoor households. Food aid plays only a minor role in alleviating poverty.
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