Farming in Transition in East Africa: Financial Risk Taking and Agricultural Intensification

This thesis contributes to understandings of the intensification of livestock production in Busia County, Western Kenya. Livestock production here has been intensifying in the recent past, and became a key strategy in Kenya for meeting the growing demand for livestock source foods here whilst simultaneously raising smallholder farmers out of poverty. How smallholders juggle insufficient incomes with a variety of expenditure needs is rarely considered in the context of smallholder livestock production in great detail. This study utilises the Financial Diaries Methodology to harness a great depth of information from 15 smallholder livestock farmers in Busia to establish the ways in which they attempt to intensify their production, understand how they engage with financial providers to achieve this, and establish the risks they face in their production. Research took place between November 2018-Febuary 2020, with around 20 months spent in the field. The results from this study find that overall, the participants make a profit from their livestock production, save for those who are categorised as subsistence farmers. However, there is a great variation in the size of these profits, even when expenditure on inputs (the resources used in livestock production, such as feed and veterinary care) is similar. Dairy cattle in particular tend to be far more lucrative, whilst chickens often resulted in financial losses for all participants, particularly due to very high mortality levels that prevent significant rises in the number of chickens owned at households that can be sold. Additionally, inputs the participants invest in plays a significant role in the incomes derived. However, despite large profit margins, this often equates to low levels of income in terms of money. The participants never accessed finance specifically for livestock production needs, and expressed fear of taking loans. Thus, this study recommends that if individual farmers are to intensify, they require access to higher yielding livestock and to inputs in a way that will not cause them any further financial burdens, as well as access to livestock production education