Dairy Agribusiness Strategies and Performance of Dairy Farmers in Nyeri, Kirinyanga, Muranga and Kiambu Counties in Kenya

Abstract

Despite intensive knowledge and skill presumably passed on to the dairy farmers, there is a huge outcry from these farm entrepreneurs of high cost of dairy production and low returns on their dairy farming investment. Nevertheless, a small portion of the farmers have gone ahead to venture into dairy farming as business. This study sought to establish the dairy different investment strategies or combination of investment strategies and their resulting performance in the agribusiness farms. The study focused on the dairy agribusiness strategies of dairy farms in Nyeri, Kirinyanga, Murangá and Kiambu counties of Kenya. The study covered four objectives independent valuables and one dependent valuable. The independent valuables include innovative activities strategies; Operations activities strategies; Training of dairy farmers and value addition strategies. The four independent variables are checking against the farm performance as the dependent variable. Sample size was 384 dairy agribusiness farms. The sample size wasderived using Mugenda &Mugenda sampling formulae applied on the total number of active dairy farmers who delivered milk to Milk Associations (processor, Union, Federation, Cooperative (D.F.C.S.) self-help (S.H.G.), Investment Company) data sourced from Kenya Dairy Board 2015. For data collection questionnaires was the major instrument. Where approvals were given photographs were taken. Data was analyzed using the SPSS computer software, where both descriptive and inferential statistics were derived. Regression analysis was used in estimating the relationships among variables.The study found that innovative activities strategies in dairy agribusiness, dairy agribusiness farming operations activities, training to dairy agribusiness farmers and end product value addition influence the performance in dairy farming in the four counties in Kenya. The study recommends area for further studies to consider other County Governments in Kenya for purpose of making a comparison of the findings with those of the current study