Characterisation of adopters and nonadopters of d

Authors: E G Kebebe S J Oosting I Baltenweck A J Duncan

Publish Date: 2017/02/21

Volume: 49, Issue: 4, Pages: 681-690

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Abstract

While there is a general consensus that using dairy technologies such as improved breeds of dairy cows can substantially increase farm productivity and income adoption of such technologies has been generally low in developing countries The underlying reasons for nonadoption of beneficial technologies in the dairy sector are not fully understood In this study we characterised adopters and nonadopters of dairy technologies in Ethiopia and Kenya based on farmers’ resources ownership in order to identify why many farmers in Ethiopia and Kenya have not adopted improved dairy technologies As compared to nonadopters farmers who adopt dairy technology own relatively more farm resources The result signals that differences in resource endowments could lead to divergent technology adoption scenarios Results show that a higher proportion of sample smallholders in Kenya have adopted dairy technologies than those in Ethiopia Except for the use of veterinary services fewer than 10 of sample farmers in Ethiopia have adopted dairy technologies—less than half the number of adopters in Kenya The higher level of dairy technology adoption in Kenya can be ascribed partly to the long history of dairy development including improvements in the value chain for the delivery of inputs services and fluid milk marketing Interventions that deal with the constraints related to access to farm resources and input and output markets could facilitate uptake of dairy technology in developing countriesFinancial support for this research was generously provided by the CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food CPWF through the International Livestock Research Institute ILRI We are grateful to the participants of the focus group discussions to the key informants and to the questionnaire interviewees for their cooperation We thank Eunice Kariuki for sharing the dataset for Kenya from EADD project held by ILRI

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