School of Agricultural Sciences

Rabbit meat perceptions and consumption determinants among households in Nakuru County, Kenya

2025-07-09T07:26:40Z

Rabbit meat perceptions and consumption determinants among households in Nakuru County, Kenya Muchira, Anthony; Mutai, Benjamin; Muange, Elijah The concept of the livestock revolution highlights significant changes in global animal production systems, driven by population growth, urbanization, and rising per capita incomes. This has resulted in unprecedented growth in the demand for animal-origin foods, particularly in developing countries. As a result, there is an urgent need for sustainable and nutritious alternatives to conventional livestock. Rabbit meat offers a viable solution due to its superior nutritional profile that includes high protein, low cholesterol, and essential vitamins. Despite its benefits, consumption of rabbit meat remains low compared to popular types of meat. Most of the previous research on rabbits has focused on production aspects and there is limited information on the current status of rabbit meat consumption. This study examines household perceptions and factors influencing rabbit meat consumption in Nakuru County, Kenya. Data was collected from 196 households using semi-structured questionnaires administered through face-to-face interviews. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and the double hurdle model. The study found that perceptions of rabbit meat by respondents were generally positive. Regression results show that decision to consume rabbit meat was influenced positively by respondent’s awareness of rabbit meat's nutritional benefits, perceived taste, knowing a rabbit keeper and distance to the market, and negatively by respondent’s age and level of education. Intensity of consumption was positively influenced by affordability of the meat and distance to market, but negatively by age and household size. The study recommends improving rabbit meat’s market accessibility and affordability and increasing awareness on its nutritional benefits be pursued.

Effect of mothers’ use of information and communication technologies on dietary quality and undernutrition in young children in Kenya

2025-07-09T07:23:12Z

Effect of mothers’ use of information and communication technologies on dietary quality and undernutrition in young children in Kenya Ngigi, Marther W.; Muange, Elijah N. Child undernutrition remains a global challenge, with 200 million underfives suffering from wasting and stunting. Mothers’ access to nutrition and healthrelated information is critical for improving children’s dietary quality and nutrition outcomes. The use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in lowand middle-income countries is increasing and could improve mothers’ access to this information. This paper examines the effect of mother’s use of ICT on dietary quality and child undernutrition in a lower-middle-income country. The study uses a nationally representative sample of 10,385 children aged 6–59 months extracted from the Kenya Integrated Household Budget Survey 2015–2016. Dietary quality was measured using a child’s dietary diversity score (CDDS), while undernutrition was measured using underweight, wasting, and stunting levels. An instrumental variable approach was used to control for endogeneity of dietary quality and was executed using extended probit and extended ordered probit models. The study found that except for breast milk and dairy products, children of mothers who used ICT had significantly higher consumption of all food groups (P < 0.01). Children whose mothers used ICT had a higher CCDS and nutrient-dense food consumption (P < 0.01). Besides, the study found a significant (p < 0.01) positive effect of mothers’ use of ICT on the quality of children’s diets, with radio having the, most substantial effect. Dietary quality significantly (p < 0.01) and negatively affected the prevalence of being underweight and wasted. Children of mothers using ICT were found to have a significantly (p < 0.05) lower prevalence and severity of underweight and stunting, with the strongest effect resulting from mobile phone use. This research offers novel evidence to policymakers about the importance of incorporating ICT into policies and interventions for disseminating child nutritional and health information to mothers and caregivers in low- and middle-income countries.

Innovative methods of teaching youth polytechnic students in Kenya

2025-07-09T07:25:17Z

Innovative methods of teaching youth polytechnic students in Kenya Chege, N.W. Interaction with instructors drawn from many TVET institutions in Kenya has revealed that the methods of teaching commonly taught to the instructors during their training, are not effective. Most of those methods are designed for people that have good communication skills among other skills. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the traditional methods of teaching youth polytechnic students as well as multimedia teaching and to suggest other teaching methods that may be used to effectively impart knowledge and skills to these students. Teaching includes two major components, one of sending and the other, receiving information. Innovative methods are those methods that convey the knowledge and skills intended in a way that makes the sending and receiving of the information effective and efficient. The use of innovative methods in the youth polytechnics has the potential not only to improve education, but also to improve students‟ communication and interaction skills that will eventually eradicate the tribal animosities that has derailed development progress in Kenya and negatively affected human advancement.

Evaluating the Effectiveness of a Digital Knowledge Pack in improving Agricultural Experiential Learning: The Case Study of Egerton University’s Students, Kenya

2025-07-09T07:24:30Z

Evaluating the Effectiveness of a Digital Knowledge Pack in improving Agricultural Experiential Learning: The Case Study of Egerton University’s Students, Kenya Chege, Nancy W.; Mungai, Nancy W.; Ombati, Justus One of the roles of higher education is to produce competent professionals with high employability skills. Learning by doing commonly known as Experiential Learning (EL), is an approach to learning that helps students acquire competences needed in the job markets. Field attachment including Farm Attachment Programme (FAP) of Egerton University (EU) is known to provide opportunities for EL. However, the effectiveness of this approach to learning is dependent on possession of prior knowledge and EL abilities including ability to; willingly get actively involved in the learning experiences, reflect, analyze, solve problems, make decisions in addition making continuity arrangements for innovations/projects initiated. This study aimed at evaluating the effectiveness of a designed Digital Knowledge Pack (DKP) to improve the levels of ELAs among the students of EU. The DKP design attributes under evaluation were the DKP; weekly structure, implementation enablement, students’ portfolio and resources. The specific objectives of the study were to(i) characterize EU students on FAP (ii) determine the levels obtained on ELAs with each DKP innovation design attribute (iii) determine the effects obtained on ELAs with each DKP innovation design attribute iv) evaluate the extent to which the use of a DKP improved ELA levels among the students. The study employed Participatory Action Research Design (PAR) by first allowing a sample of 30 students to proceed on FAP for three weeks and then introducing a designed DKP toolkit in the fourth week of attachment. The levels of ELAs among students were determined before and after the introduction of the DKP using a rating continuum scale of 1-5. The results showed that the DKP weekly structure had a significant (F (10,29) =8.49, P=.001) effect on the students’ ELAs and accounted for 72% of the variation in ELAs. The effect of the DKP student’s portfolio on ELAs was also significant (F (9,29) = 6.95, P =.001) at 95% confidence level and accounted for 74% of the variation in ELA levels. DKP implementation enablement and DKP resource attribute had significant [(F (3,26) 87.410, P<.0001) and (F (16,29) =2.86, P =.03) respectively], effects. The size effects of the two variables were 64.9% and 50.6% on ELAs respectively. Further analysis revealed that multicollinearity existed in the DKP design attribute variables. This was resolved by conducting Principal Component Analysis (PCA) of the DKP design variables. A scree plot showed a one component solution that explained 91.18% of variance in the ELA index regression model. The component Eigenvalue was 3.647 and therefore the four DKP attributes could be explained by one component variable referred to in this study as DKP innovation Design (DID) attribute. The results showed that using a DKP significantly improved the ELA levels from M=2.63, SD=0.52 to M=4.07, SD=0.13. The 95% confidence interval of the mean was 1.356 [1.005, 1.706]. In conclusion the study showed that the use of a DKP innovation toolkit improved experiential learning abilities among Egerton University students. The higher levels of learning abilities allowed students to gain more competences (knowledge, skills and attitudes) from their farm experiences thus improving the students’ employability skills