| dc.description.abstract | Pig sub-sector sustains livelihoods of many families in Kenya. Pig rearing has been one of well-established sub-sector in Kenya following growing and expansion of export markets, value addition and increasing awareness of food and nutrition security. Pig farming if efficiently managed has great potentials for increasing protein supply in Kenya. Pig farming in Tharaka-Nithi County is mainly done by smallholder farmers and this is due to small land size holding. There have been concerted efforts to commercialize the pig sub-sector so as to make it more profitable to farmers, especially smallholder farmers. Despite the development, the profitability in the sector has not been consistent among the smallholder farmers. Smallholder farmers have been earning varying and dismal profits. The causes of the varying profits have not been empirically established with the influence of institutional arrangements from a transaction cost perspective and management factors (farm and farmer characteristics) contributing to this inconsistency not fully established. The main objective of this study was to establish which institutional arrangements and management factors affect the profit efficiency of small-holder pig farmers in Tharaka-Nithi County. Data was collected from 80 smallholder pig farmers in Maara Constituency. The data was processed using STATA and DEA software. The work employed Data Envelopment Analysis to come up with profit efficiency rankings among the farmers and stochastic frontier profit function was used to analyze the factors that affect profit efficiency. DEA revealed average input slack value of 1208 which means farmers had a chance of reducing their input costs by this amount per year without compromising their output. This study further observed that education level, gender and level of trust negatively influenced profit inefficiency, while age, pi breed type, market outlet and debt asset ratio positively influenced profit inefficiency. The mean profit efficiency according to the DEA results was 0.40 implying that efficiency level could be increased by 60% through reducing the excess inputs used and better use of available resources. This would be acquired if good management practices and marketing channels are adopted. The gamma parameter (y) was 0.63 which indicates that 63% of the total variation in net revenue level was due to profit inefficiencies. The findings could be useful to the stakeholders of the pig sub sector to formulate policies pertaining to pig enterprise inputs, marketing issues and financial products. Benchmarks can be established from the best practices farms which can be used as a package for enhancing and stabilizing profit efficiencies of smallholder pig farmers which in turn could help improve the Kenya economy. The study recommends for model pig centers in Tharaka-Nithi County as well as other counties showcasing best practice. | en_US |
