Using hubs to increase smallholder farmers’ access to services: Experiences from the East Africa Dairy Development Project

Using hubs to increase smallholder farmers’ access to services: Experiences from the East Africa Dairy Development Project Gender and Market Oriented Agriculture (AgriGender 2011) Workshop Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 31st January–2nd February 2011 Isabelle Baltenweck and Immaculate Omondi

Basic project information
Vision: doubling household dairy income by year 10 through integrated interventions in dairy production, market-access and knowledge application.
Target of 179,000 families
4 (and a half) year pilot phase in Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda
Consortium led by Heifer International, with TechnoServe, ILRI, ABS-TCM and ICRAF
Most activities involve involvement of farmers’ groups
Small groups of 15 to 30 farmers, for training
Larger groups (500 +), who owns cooler or manages the bulking centre

Cornerstone of the project: the hub approach

Advantages of the hub approach
Improved access to inputs and services
Physical availability
Quality
Price (bulk purchase)
Possibility to purchase on credit using the “check-off” system
Improved access to milk market
Chilling plant
Or bulking raw milk centre (traditional hub)

Transforming Chilling plants to Business Hubs TRANSPORTERS TESTING FARMERS FIELD DAYS FEED SUPPLY AI & EXTENSION VILLAGE BANKS OTHER RELATED MEs HARDWARE SUPPLIERS CHILLING HUB

ILRI role in EADD
In charge of baseline survey
Technical support to specific activities (feed and traditional market)
“ knowledge broker”- EADD is a pilot project
capture and share lessons
pilot tests “best bets”

Hypotheses tested
There is no difference between male and female headed households regarding:
registration
shareholding
milk sale to chilling plants
use of services at hub
Data do not allow us to do look at intra households decision making

Sampling and Data Collection Consultative Participatory Process Structured Dairy Farmer Household Interviews Criteria obtained from 2008 & 2009 Baseline survey ILRI Existing Hub Advanced - Kipkaren New Hub Starter - Kaptumo 301 Households Non-participating Households Hub participating Households New Hub Emerging - Kabiyet

Data used
Data collected from 301 dairy households in Kenya
registered at the EADD hub (56%)
Non-registered households (44%)
Household socio-economic data collected
Farmer characteristics
Farm characteristics
Hub participation
Farmer preferences

Registration to the Hub Households are encouraged to register at the hub when they deliver milk or access inputs or services. Data are kept by the hub management. The service is free. There are more registered households among male headed households than among female headed households (difference not statistically significant) % Male headed households % Female headed households n % n % Households registered in EADD hubs 143 57 23 46 Households not registered in EADD hubs but have registered in other group (KCC/ self-help groups) 1 <1 1 2 Households not registered in EADD hubs or any other group 107 43 26 52 total 251 100 50 100.00

Who is registered? Relatively large proportion of spouse (women) is registered in male headed households, either on her own (26% of the households) or jointly with head (7%).

Challenges with group registration Provide more and better information to potential beneficiaries

Shareholding In Chilling Plant hubs, companies are set up to own cooler and equipment. Farmers are encouraged to buy shares
Most households have not bought shares (“wait and see attitude”)
No major difference between male and female headed households

Milk marketing No difference in percentage of male and female headed households selling milk to chilling plants

Reasons for not delivering milk
Interventions
Training on feed management; planning for dry season feeding
Price… how to make CP profitable and still pay “good” price to farmers??

Use of hub services
Fewer female headed households use Animal Health services, Agrovet and Feed store and Artificial Insemination
This is likely to have negative impact on milk production

Decision to sell milk to chilling plant or purchase inputs at the hub No significant effect on decision to sell milk or purchase inputs milk marketing use of input & services Variables Coef. P>z Coef. P>z 1 if head is male, 0 if female 0.7 0.14 -0.32 0.68 Education of Head (years of schooling) 0.05 0.36 -0.11 0.17 Household size 0.1 0.36 0.02 0.89 1 if head registered as member of hub, 0 otherwise 1.81** 0.04 1.55 0.11 1 if spouse registered as member of hub, 0 otherwise 1.45 0.15 3.21** 0.01 Value of shares paid in USD (1 USD=Kshs.80) 0.02 0.1 0.07** 0.01 Number of total livestock kept (TLU) 0.21*** 0 0.08 0.35 1 if household keeps exotic cattle, 0 otherwise 1.24 0.17 0.74 0.47 1 if household keeps crossbred cattle, 0 otherwise 1.48 0.09 1.97** 0.05

Challenges with Hub Agrovet shop

Challenges with Hub AI services

Conclusions
About 70 hubs, of which 13 do not have chilling plants (traditional market, bulking raw milk)
Hub approach provides a flexible way to provide input and output services to small farmers, many of them are women
It however requires good governance structure and a lot of “facilitation” to reach sustainability
Some adjustments needed for the women to participate, and benefit fully
To better understand what’s working (and not working), pilot testing of interventions targeted at women, the poor and the youth planned this year
Women‘ group purchase of shares
Subsidized access to inputs and services

http://www.ilri.org	1056
http://74.6.238.254	2
http://translate.googleusercontent.com	2

Using hubs to increase smallholder farmers’ access to services: Experiences from the East Africa Dairy Development Project

by ILRI on Feb 01, 2011

Accessibility

Categories

Tags

Upload Details

Usage Rights

3 Embeds 1,060

Statistics

Using hubs to increase smallholder farmers’ access to services: Experiences from the East Africa Dairy Development Project — Presentation Transcript