MST-Department of Agribusiness Management and Trade (AMT)

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Browsing MST-Department of Agribusiness Management and Trade (AMT) by Subject "Dagoretti"

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    Analysis of Household Milk Purchase and Intrahousehold Allocation to Children among Low Income Households in Periurban Area of Dagoretti, Nairobi
    (Kenyatta University, 2023) Muunda, Emmanuel Mwau; Eric K.Bett; Nadhem Mtimet
    Milk is one of the most important animal sourced foods for Kenyans. The Kenyan dairy sector contributes 8% to the country’s GDP and has grown tremendously in the last two decades. Despite the growth and contribution to the economy, the dairy sector is fragmented into formal and informal marketing channels, with the latter dominating over 80% of the market, selling unprocessed milk. The informal sector is preferred for offering cheaper milk and is comparatively more accessible among low-income households, hence contributing significantly to their food and nutritional security. Despite this, there are food safety concerns that elicit the regulatory authorities to introduce regulations banning the direct marketing of unprocessed milk. There is little evidence of the extent to which both dairy subsectors play in the nutritional requirements of low-income households, especially to children who rely on milk as key source of nutrients from livestock-derived foods. Consequently, this cross-sectional study aimed at characterizing the purchase and consumption behavior of low-income households and estimating what household factors influenced the behavior. It also aimed at assessing the potential effects such policy regulations would have on the milk allocation to children below 4years in such households. Using a questionnaire, primary data was obtained from 200 respondents in Nairobi County. Descriptive statistics and OLS regression were used to understand the purchase and consumption behavior of the households. A best-worst scaling approach was used to analyze the potential effects of banning the informal dairy sector. The results revealed that 98% of the households purchased raw milk at least once during the 7 days before the survey and only 17% purchased processed milk. Results from the OLS model suggests that quantity of raw milk purchased in positively and significantly associated with income, number of children below 4 years of age and budgetary allocation to ASF. The price of raw milk and amount of processed milk purchased negatively influenced quantities purchased from informal markets. The findings also indicated that, an increase in milk price, occasioned by elimination of the cheaper option would decrease allocation to children and lower income households would replace milk with fruits or porridge, foods that are not of equivalent nutritional value to milk. These results provided insights into the behaviour of low-income dairy consumers as well as information useful to policy shapers and industry players while filling the knowledge gap of role informal dairy plays to low-income households’ food basket. The clear association of income and milk intake calls for efforts from the government to support the dairy sector with policies that promote the availability and affordability of milk, especially for a sector that feeds low-income families, as it is the case with the informal dairy markets. This study recommends that food policy changes streamlining milk value chains should account for the effects on pricing, consumer responsiveness to the price adjustments and children’s nutrition. It also recommended that regulatory and other sector players should consider interventions that strengthen informal sector as an agent of supplying affordable and safe milk to households with constraint budgets.