Profitability of smallholder pig farming in Tharaka-Nithi county, Kenya
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Date
2014-10-30
Authors
Micheni, Pauline Kananu
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Kenyatta University
Abstract
Pig industry sustains livelihoods of many families in Kenya. Pig rearing has been one of wellestablishedindustry
in Kenya following growing export markets and increasing number of health
conscious consumers. Pig production if efficiently managed has great potentials for increasing
protein supply in Kenya. Smallholder pig farms in Tharaka-Nithi County have been facing
varying and dismal profits. The main objective of this study will be to establish which
institutional arrangements and management factors affect the profit efficiency of small-holder
pig farmers in Tharaka-Nithi County. A multi-stage purposive sampling technique will be
adopted to collect cross sectional data of eighty (80) smallholder pig farmers in Maara
Constituency by the use of semi-structured interview schedules. The work will employ Data
Envelopment Analysis to come up with profit efficiency rankings among the farmers and
stochastic frontier profit function will be used to analyze the factors that affect profit efficiency.
The data will be processed using STATA and DEA Frontier packages. The findings could be
useful to the stakeholders of the pig industry sub sector to formulate policies pertaining to pig
enterprise inputs, marketing issues and financial products and also can establish benchmarks
which can be used as a package for enhancing and stabilizing profit efficiencies of smallholder
pig farmers which in turn could help improve the Kenya economy