IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v17y2020i6p2033-d334328.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Understanding Alternatives to Tobacco Production in Kenya: A Qualitative Analysis at the Sub-National Level

Author

Listed:
  • Madelyn Clark

    (Faculty of Medicine, School of Physical and Occupational Therapy, McGill University, 3630 Promenade Sir William Osler, Montreal, QC H3G 1Y5, Canada)

  • Peter Magati

    (School of Economics, University of Nairobi, Nairobi 30197, Kenya)

  • Jeffrey Drope

    (Economic and Health Policy Research, American Cancer Society, Atlanta, GA 30303, USA)

  • Ronald Labonte

    (School of Epidemiology and Public Health, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON K1N 6N5, Canada)

  • Raphael Lencucha

    (Faculty of Medicine, School of Physical and Occupational Therapy, McGill University, 3630 Promenade Sir William Osler, Montreal, QC H3G 1Y5, Canada)

Abstract

Tobacco is a key cash crop for many farmers in Kenya, although there is a variety of challenges associated with tobacco production. This study seeks to understand alternatives to tobacco production from the perspective of government officials, extension officers, and farmers at the sub-national level (Migori, Busia, and Meru) in Kenya. The study analyzes data from qualitative key-informant interviews with government officials and extension officers ( n = 9) and focus group discussions (FGDs) with farmers ( n = 5). Data were coded according to pre-identified categories derived from the research aim, namely, opportunities and challenges of tobacco farming and alternative crops, as well findings that illustrate the policy environment that shapes the agricultural context in these regions. We highlight important factors associated with the production of non-tobacco agricultural commodities, including the factors that shape the ability of these non-agricultural commodities to serve as viable alternatives to tobacco. The results highlight the effect that several factors, including access to capital, markets, and governmental assistance, have on farmer decisions. The results additionally display the structured policy approaches that are being promoted in governmental offices towards agricultural production, as well as the institutional shortcomings that inhibit their implementation at the sub-national level.

Suggested Citation

  • Madelyn Clark & Peter Magati & Jeffrey Drope & Ronald Labonte & Raphael Lencucha, 2020. "Understanding Alternatives to Tobacco Production in Kenya: A Qualitative Analysis at the Sub-National Level," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(6), pages 1-14, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:6:p:2033-:d:334328
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/6/2033/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/6/2033/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Julia Smith & Kelley Lee, 2018. "From colonisation to globalisation: a history of state capture by the tobacco industry in Malawi," Review of African Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(156), pages 186-202, April.
    2. World Bank, 2012. "Devolution without Disruption," World Bank Publications - Reports 27157, The World Bank Group.
    3. Adriana Appau & Jeffrey Drope & Firman Witoelar & Jenina Joy Chavez & Raphael Lencucha, 2019. "Why Do Farmers Grow Tobacco? A Qualitative Exploration of Farmers Perspectives in Indonesia and Philippines," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(13), pages 1-11, July.
    4. Edward B. Barbier & Ramón E. López & Jacob P. Hochard, 2016. "Debt, Poverty and Resource Management in a Rural Smallholder Economy," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 63(2), pages 411-427, February.
    5. Otañez, M.G. & Mamudu, H.M. & Glantz, S.A., 2009. "Tobacco companies' use of developing countries' economic reliance on tobacco to lobby against global tobacco control: The case of Malawi," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 99(10), pages 1759-1771.
    6. Lencucha, Raphael & Drope, Jeffrey & Labonte, Ronald, 2016. "Rhetoric and the law, or the law of rhetoric: How countries oppose novel tobacco control measures at the World Trade Organization," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 100-107.
    7. Fischer, Klara, 2016. "Why new crop technology is not scale-neutral—A critique of the expectations for a crop-based African Green Revolution," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(6), pages 1185-1194.
    8. Danielle Resnick, 2018. "The Devolution Revolution: Implications for Agricultural Service Delivery in Ghana," Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Security Policy Research Papers 270644, Michigan State University, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics, Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Security (FSP).
    9. Luisa Menapace & Gregory Colson & Roberta Raffaelli, 2013. "Risk Aversion, Subjective Beliefs, and Farmer Risk Management Strategies," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 95(2), pages 384-389.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gumilang Aryo Sahadewo & Jeffrey Drope & Qing Li & Firman Witoelar & Raphael Lencucha, 2020. "In-and-Out of Tobacco Farming: Shifting Behavior of Tobacco Farmers in Indonesia," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(24), pages 1-16, December.

    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. Raphael Lencucha & Jeffrey Drope & Ronald Labonte & Benedito Cunguara & Arne Ruckert & Zvikie Mlambo & Artwell Kadungure & Stella Bialous & Nhamo Nhamo, 2020. "The Political Economy of Tobacco in Mozambique and Zimbabwe: A Triangulation Mixed Methods Protocol," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(12), pages 1-13, June.
    2. Julia Smith & Jennifer Fang, 2020. "‘If you kill tobacco, you kill Malawi’: Structural barriers to tobacco diversification for sustainable development," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(6), pages 1575-1583, November.
    3. Charlotte Fabri & Sam Vermeulen & Steven Van Passel & Sergei Schaub, 2024. "Crop diversification and the effect of weather shocks on Italian farmers' income and income risk," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 75(3), pages 955-980, September.
    4. Ghassan Baliki & Tilman Brück & Neil T. N. Ferguson & Sindu Workneh Kebede, 2022. "Fragility exposure index: Concepts, measurement, and application," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(2), pages 639-660, May.
    5. Freudenreich, Hanna & Musshoff, Oliver & Wiercinski, Ben, 2017. "The Relationship between Farmers' Shock Experiences and their Uncertainty Preferences - Experimental Evidence from Mexico," GlobalFood Discussion Papers 256212, Georg-August-Universitaet Goettingen, GlobalFood, Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development.
    6. Abdulai, Issaka & Hoffmann, Munir P. & Jassogne, Laurence & Asare, Richard & Graefe, Sophie & Tao, Hsiao-Hang & Muilerman, Sander & Vaast, Philippe & Van Asten, Piet & Läderach, Peter & Rötter, Reimun, 2020. "Variations in yield gaps of smallholder cocoa systems and the main determining factors along a climate gradient in Ghana," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 181(C).
    7. Roussy, Caroline & Ridier, Aude & Chaib, Karim, 2014. "A methodological proposal to approach farmers’ adoption behavior: stated preferences and perceptions of the innovation," 2014 International Congress, August 26-29, 2014, Ljubljana, Slovenia 182983, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    8. Caroline Roussy & Aude Ridier & Karim Chaïb, 2014. "Adoption d’innovations par les agriculteurs : rôle des perceptions et des préférences," Post-Print hal-01123427, HAL.
    9. Chèze, Benoît & David, Maia & Martinet, Vincent, 2020. "Understanding farmers' reluctance to reduce pesticide use: A choice experiment," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    10. Lim, Sung Soo & Bone, Matthew, 2022. "Optimism, debt accumulation, and business growth," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    11. Marianne Lefebvre & Estelle Midler & Philippe Bontems, 2020. "Adoption of Environment-Friendly Agricultural Practices with Background Risk: Experimental Evidence," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 76(2), pages 405-428, July.
    12. Abdillah Ahsan & Nur Hadi Wiyono & Nadira Amalia & Retno Rusdjijati & Meita Veruswati & Santi Martini & Yayi Suryo Prabandari & Adela Miranti Yuniar, 2024. "Early assessment of tobacco excise sharing fund as policy for farmers’ viable alternatives in Indonesia: case study of four municipalities in Indonesia," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-8, December.
    13. Rohrig, Maren B.K. & Hardeweg, Bernd & Lentz, Wolfgang, 2018. "Efficient farming options for German apple growers under risk – a stochastic dominance approach," International Food and Agribusiness Management Review, International Food and Agribusiness Management Association, vol. 21(1).
    14. Barlow, Pepita & Stuckler, David, 2021. "Globalization and health policy space: introducing the WTO health dataset of trade challenges to national health regulations at World Trade Organization, 1995-2016," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 108988, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    15. Zack Guido & Sara Lopus & Kurt Waldman & Corrie Hannah & Andrew Zimmer & Natasha Krell & Chris Knudson & Lyndon Estes & Kelly Caylor & Tom Evans, 2021. "Perceived links between climate change and weather forecast accuracy: new barriers to tools for agricultural decision-making," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 168(1), pages 1-20, September.
    16. Cisnetto, Valentina & Barlow, James, 2020. "The development of complex and controversial innovations. Genetically modified mosquitoes for malaria eradication," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(3).
    17. Prabhu Pingali & Mathew Abraham, 2022. "Food systems transformation in Asia – A brief economic history," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 53(6), pages 895-910, November.
    18. Barlow, P. & Stuckler, D., 2021. "Globalization and health policy space: Introducing the WTOhealth dataset of trade challenges to national health regulations at World Trade Organization, 1995–2016," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 275(C).
    19. Hanna Freudenreich & Sindu W. Kebede, 2022. "Experience of shocks, household wealth and expectation formation: Evidence from smallholder farmers in Kenya," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 53(5), pages 756-774, September.
    20. Makokha, Racheal Omukhulu, 2017. "Does Decentralization Improve Provision of Health Services? Evidence from Kisumu and Makueni Counties in Kenya," Thesis Commons xef7a, Center for Open Science.

    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:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:6:p:2033-:d:334328. 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: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    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.