IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ags/joafsc/359499.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Association Between Duration of Community-based Group Membership and Sustainable Livelihoods for Kenyan Women Dairy Farmers

Author

Listed:
  • Walton, Colleen
  • VanLeeuwen, John
  • Yeudall, Fiona
  • Taylor, Jennifer

Abstract

Kenyan community leaders called for strengthened sustainable livelihoods for farmers and in 1992 formed a self-help dairy group that was reorganized in 2009 to form the Wakulima Dairy Ltd. (WDL). At WDL, members sell surplus milk to the dairy and, through nongovernmental organization (NGO) partnerships, receive training to enhance dairy farm productivity. As a result, higher milk production has been reported; however, data are lacking on sustainability and livelihood outcomes of dairy training for women farmers. To inform future projects and interventions, our study objectives were to determine the relationships between dairy group membership and duration of membership, sustainable livelihood assets, household income, and food security. We thus conducted a cross-sectional survey of 88 WDL members (among four membership duration groups) and 23 nonmember farmers. Milk production and herd size were higher for greater-than-three-year members compared to nonmembers and one-to-three-year members. The proportion of households with an income from dairy of greater than 5,000 ksh/month (ranging from 0 to 40 percent), food security (ranging from 4 to 30 percent), and number of improved household characteristics (ranging from 1.7 to 3.3), were positively associated with longer membership duration. While the cross-sectional design does not allow attribution of causality, results suggested that WDL membership strengthened the livelihood assets of women farmers, particularly after three years, and that positive outcomes were sustained with longer membership duration. Anecdotally, women indicated that WDL's role in women's control of dairy income, regular payments, and food and services on credit, were important. WDL is a model to strengthen sustainable livelihoods through relevant gendered training, supports, and market access for agricultural products. Research to understand the optimal asset mix to benefit from dairy groups as well as factors limiting per-cow milk production is needed to guide future interventions and enhance the role of dairy farming for sustainable livelihoods.

Suggested Citation

  • Walton, Colleen & VanLeeuwen, John & Yeudall, Fiona & Taylor, Jennifer, 2012. "Association Between Duration of Community-based Group Membership and Sustainable Livelihoods for Kenyan Women Dairy Farmers," Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development, Center for Transformative Action, Cornell University, vol. 3(1).
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:joafsc:359499
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/359499/files/132.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ahmed, Mohamed A. M. & Jabbar, Mohammad A. & Ehui, Simeon K., 2000. "Household-level economic and nutritional impacts of market-oriented dairy production in the Ethiopian highlands," Research Reports 183002, International Livestock Research Institute.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kefyalew Endale & Getnet Alemu & Worku Gebeyehu, 2024. "The responsiveness of rural poverty to structural and rural transformations in Ethiopia," African Development Review, African Development Bank, vol. 36(3), pages 408-424, September.
    2. Jessie Pullar & Luke Allen & Nick Townsend & Julianne Williams & Charlie Foster & Nia Roberts & Mike Rayner & Bente Mikkelsen & Francesco Branca & Kremlin Wickramasinghe, 2018. "The impact of poverty reduction and development interventions on non-communicable diseases and their behavioural risk factors in low and lower-middle income countries: A systematic review," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(2), pages 1-27, February.
    3. Ahmed, Mohamed A. M. & Ehui, Simeon & Yemesrach, Assefa, 2004. "Dairy development in Ethiopia," EPTD discussion papers 123, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    4. Valerie L. Flax & Emily A. Ouma & Isabelle Baltenweck & Esther Omosa & Amy Webb Girard & Nathaniel Jensen & Paula Dominguez-Salas, 2023. "Pathways from livestock to improved human nutrition: lessons learned in East Africa," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 15(5), pages 1293-1312, October.
    5. Kebebe, E. G., 2017. "Household nutrition and income impacts of using dairy technologies in mixed crop–livestock production systems," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 61(4), October.
    6. Nicholson, Charles F. & Mwangi, Lucy & Staal, Steven J. & Thornton, Philip K., 2003. "Dairy Cow Ownership And Child Nutritional Status In Kenya," Research Bulletins 122122, Cornell University, Department of Applied Economics and Management.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:joafsc:359499. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.