IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/iaae06/25246.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Decentralization and Access to Agricultural Extension Services in Kenya

Author

Listed:
  • Nambiro, Elizabeth
  • Omiti, John M.
  • Mugunieri, Godiah Lawrence

Abstract

The form and content of decentralization has dominated development discourse and public sector reform agenda in Kenya in the last two decades. The case of agricultural extension service presents decentralization in a difficult context partly due to lack of information on its possible diverse impacts especially on resource poor farmers. This paper explores the effect of decentralization of agricultural extension on access, accountability and empowerment, and efficiency of delivering services to farmers. Secondary data, participatory research methods and primary data from a random sample of 250 farmers were used. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, multivariate analysis and logistic regression. The results show that there is improved access to extension services with increasing level of decentralization. Farmers from areas with higher decentralized extension also showed enhanced level of awareness of different channels for delivery of extension services. This improved knowledge, being an important component of empowerment of the farming community, resulted from the increase of service providers, who displayed synergy in their multiple methods of operation. Public delivery channels were the most affordable and were also ranked first for quality. Income, literacy levels, distance from towns and access to telephone significantly influenced access to extension services. Gender of the household-head was a key determinant for seeking out extension services in areas with high concentration of agricultural activities. For a pluralistic system to work there is need for better co-ordination between the various groups. Although there is evidence of partnership and synergy between service providers, there appeared to be little effective co-ordination of the groups involved. The government and other stakeholders should work towards developing a strong institutional framework that will guide and enhance this mutually beneficial partnership.

Suggested Citation

  • Nambiro, Elizabeth & Omiti, John M. & Mugunieri, Godiah Lawrence, 2006. "Decentralization and Access to Agricultural Extension Services in Kenya," 2006 Annual Meeting, August 12-18, 2006, Queensland, Australia 25246, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:iaae06:25246
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.25246
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/25246/files/pp060168.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.25246?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bengt Kristrom, 1990. "A Non-Parametric Approach to the Estimation of Welfare Measures in Discrete Response Valuation Studies," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 66(2), pages 135-139.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Cooper, Joseph C., 2002. "Flexible Functional Form Estimation of Willingness to Pay Using Dichotomous Choice Data," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 267-279, March.
    2. Tuan, Tran Huu & Navrud, Stale, 2009. "Applying the dissonance-minimising format to value cultural heritage in developing countries," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 53(3), pages 1-17.
    3. Pere Riera & Raúl Brey & Guillermo Gándara, 2008. "Bid design for non-parametric contingent valuation with a single bounded dichotomous choice format," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 186(3), pages 43-60, October.
    4. Bengt Kriström, 1993. "Comparing continuous and discrete contingent valuation questions," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 3(1), pages 63-71, February.
    5. Galina Williams, 2015. "Households Willingness to Pay for the Emissions Reduction Policy, Queensland, Australia," SAGE Open, , vol. 5(3), pages 21582440156, September.
    6. John P. Hoehn & Douglas J. Krieger, 2000. "An Economic Analysis of Water and Wastewater Investments in Cairo, Egypt," Evaluation Review, , vol. 24(6), pages 579-608, December.
    7. Mariana Conte Grand & Martina Chidiak, 2010. "Cambios potenciales en los usos recreativos de la costa del río Uruguay ante la instalación de la planta de celulosa Fray Bentos: un ejercicio de valoración contingente," CEMA Working Papers: Serie Documentos de Trabajo. 432, Universidad del CEMA.
    8. Ulrich J Frey & Frauke Pirscher, 2019. "Distinguishing protest responses in contingent valuation: A conceptualization of motivations and attitudes behind them," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(1), pages 1-20, January.
    9. Creel, Michael & Loomis, John, 1997. "Semi-nonparametric Distribution-Free Dichotomous Choice Contingent Valuation," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 341-358, March.
    10. Vossler, Christian A., 2003. "Multiple bounded discrete choice contingent valuation: parametric and nonparametric welfare estimation and a comparison to the payment card," MPRA Paper 38867, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Timothy C. Haab, "undated". "Indifference or Misspecification? The Distributional Impacts of Indifference on Dichotomous Choice Contingent Valuation," Working Papers 9607, East Carolina University, Department of Economics.
    12. Persson, Mattias & Svensson, Mikael, 2013. "The willingness to pay to reduce school bullying," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 1-11.
    13. Karen Blumenschein & Glenn C. Blomquist & Magnus Johannesson & Nancy Horn & Patricia Freeman, 2008. "Eliciting Willingness to Pay Without Bias: Evidence from a Field Experiment," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(525), pages 114-137, January.
    14. Poe, Gregory L. & Vossler, Christian A., 2001. "Does Specification Error Explain the Discrepancy Between Open-Ended and Dichotomous Choice Contigent Valuation Responses? A Comment on "Monte Carlo Benchmarks for Discrete Valuation Methods"," Working Papers 127665, Cornell University, Department of Applied Economics and Management.
    15. Timothy C. Haab & Kenneth E. McConnell, "undated". "A Simple Method for Bounding Willingness to Pay Using a Probit or Logit Model," Working Papers 9713, East Carolina University, Department of Economics.
    16. Henry-Osorio, Miguel & Mittelhammer, Ronald C., 2012. "An Information-Theoretic Approach to Modeling Binary Choices: Estimating Willingness to Pay for Recreation Site Attributes," 2012 Annual Meeting, August 12-14, 2012, Seattle, Washington 123432, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    17. Zethraeus, Niklas & Johansson, Per-Olov, 1997. "Willingness to Pay for Hormone Replacement Therapy," SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance 214, Stockholm School of Economics.
    18. Ulrich J Frey & Frauke Pirscher, 2018. "Willingness to pay and moral stance: The case of farm animal welfare in Germany," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(8), pages 1-20, August.
    19. Richard T. Carson, 2011. "Contingent Valuation," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 2489.
    20. John Crooker & Joseph Herriges, 2004. "Parametric and Semi-Nonparametric Estimation of Willingness-to-Pay in the Dichotomous Choice Contingent Valuation Framework," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 27(4), pages 451-480, April.

    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:ags:iaae06:25246. 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: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iaaeeea.html .

    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.