Recognizing determinants to smallholders’ market orientation and marketing arrangements: Building on a case of dairy farming in rural Kenya
Wangu, James; Mangnus, Ellen; van Westen, A. C.M.
(2021) Land, volume 10, issue 6, pp. 1 - 16
(Article)
Abstract
Smallholder commercialization is central to international development policy and prac-tice. As a result, several arrangements to foster market linkages are being implemented. Especially popular are farmers’ organizations, which are believed to be owned, controlled, and financed by smallholders. As such, their design is considered inclusive given every household in a
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community is theoretically allowed to become a member, and the governance and management structure encourage participatory decision-making. However, even in the context in which farmers’ organizations are actively promoted, a notable proportion of smallholders may not be able to engage in market-oriented production or may opt for the existing alternative marketing arrangements, as dictated by individual households’ socioeconomic characteristics. Focusing on the case of smallholder farming in Olenguruone, Nakuru county, Kenya, where a donor funded dairy farmers’ cooperative marketing arrangement is promoted alongside existing marketing opportunities, the present research investigated the factors that determine smallholders’ commercial farming orientation and marketing arrangements. It employed a case study approach, combining both quantitative and qualitative research methods for a more complete empirical inquiry. The findings demonstrate that irrespective of the external support provided through marketing opportunities such as farmer organizations, smallholders’ engagement in commercial farming and marketing is dictated by the socioeconomic attributes and market perceptions that are heterogeneous among households in a smallholder community.
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Keywords: Agribusiness, Cooperative, Donor, Farmers’ organizations, Heterogeneity, Inclusion, Global and Planetary Change, Ecology, Nature and Landscape Conservation
ISSN: 2073-445X
Publisher: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI)
Note: Funding Information: This work was financed by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research?NWO-WOTRO, (Grant number W 08.250.206). It is a part of the Follow the Food research project by Utrecht University and partners that assesses the contribution of inclusive agribusiness to local food security in Africa. Funding Information: Currently, the dairy farmers in Olenguruone have three marketing options. One, a cooperative: Olenguruone Dairy Farmers Cooperative Society (ODFCS), which was established through the support of DANIDA. The cooperative acts as the marketing link between the farmers and a private company: Happy Cow, a national dairy manufacturing private company that supplies dairy products to leading supermarkets, restaurants, and hotels in the country [56]. In the period that this research took place, this arrangement was facilitated by a public–private partnership: Kenya Market-led Dairy Programme II (KMDP-II). KMDP-II, implemented by SNV and partners between 2016–2019, was financially supported by the Embassy of the Netherlands in Nairobi [53]. The goal of the program was to increase the competitiveness of the Kenyan dairy sector by enhancing smallholder access to inputs, training, and extension services, and formal market, improving sector management and governance, international linkages and partnership, milk quality, and providing policy and sector support [57,58]. The second market player in Olenguruone is Brookside, regarded as the largest milk processing company in Kenya [59,60]. The third market player consists of brokers, a collection of mobile individuals. Often using motorcycles, they buy milk at the smallholders’ farm gate and supply to members of the community not producing their own milk, local restaurants, hotels, schools as well as to ODFCS and Brookside. Funding Information: Funding: This work was financed by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research—NWO-WOTRO, (Grant number W 08.250.206). It is a part of the Follow the Food research project by Utrecht University and partners that assesses the contribution of inclusive agribusiness to local food security in Africa. Publisher Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
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