Adoption of farm biosecurity practices among smallholder poultry farmers in Kenya - An application of latent class analysis with a multinomial logistic regression.

Sub-Saharan Africa has a growing demand for poultry, but productivity in the sector has not increased to meet this demand. One major constraints in the sector is diseases. Many farmers currently use clinical control measures that involve treating birds with antibiotics upon detecting an infection. However, this approach has presented the misuse of antibiotics, leading to antimicrobial resistance, which could have catastrophic effects going by different projections. We evaluate the uptake of preventive approaches to disease management, otherwise known as biosecurity measures and the effect of the adopted practices on animal health outcome among poultry farmers in Nyanza region of Kenya. The study applies latent class analysis, which is a model-based clustering approach to categorize poultry farmers into low, moderate, and high biosecurity adoption classes. We find low adoption of biosecurity measures across all classes of smallholder poultry farmers in Nyanza. However, correlation analysis show that increased uptake of biosecurity measures is associated with positive poultry health outcomes. This is as demonstrated by lower mortality rates among farmers characterized by higher adoption of biosecurity measures. Lastly, we implement a multinomial logistic regression to assess determinants of class membership and our analysis shows that information access is the greatest driver of biosecurity adoption. Farmers who had access to information on biosecurity measures were 25 % more likely to belong to the class of farmers adopting more biosecurity practices - high adoption class- and 21 % less likely to be in the moderate adopters class. As such, the study recommends enhanced information dissemination to improve the uptake of biosecurity measures.

What is the impact of rural bank credit access on the technical efficiency of smallholder cassava farmers in Ghana? An endogenous switching regression analysis.

This paper assesses the impact of access to credit from rural and community banks (RCBs) on the technical efficiency of smallholder cassava farmers in Ghana. The study employed the stochastic frontier, and endogenous switching regression models to estimate the technical efficiency, and the impact of RCB credit access, respectively, on a randomly selected sample of 300 smallholder cassava farmers in the Fanteakwa District of Ghana. Results suggest that cassava farmers in the District are 70.5 percent technically efficient implying that cassava yield levels could be increased further by 29.5 percent without changing the current levels of inputs. The results further reveal that the gender of the household head, access to extension services, membership in farmer organizations, and proximity to the bank are the major factors that positively influence farmers to access credit from RCBs. On average, farmers who accessed credit from RCBs have significantly higher technical efficiencies than farmers who did not access, suggesting that access to credit from RCBs positively impacts the technical efficiency of smallholder cassava farmers.

The Role of Targeted Nutrition Education of Preschoolers and Caregivers on Sustained Consumption of Biofortified Orange-Fleshed Sweetpotato in Kenya.

BACKGROUND: Persistent prevalence of high malnutrition in poor households in developing countries calls for enhancement of cost-effective nutrition interventions among the vulnerable groups. One responsive way is to promote regular consumption of home-grown biofortified foods, particularly in the micronutrient-deficient groups. Previous nutrition interventions have targeted adults with behavior change education, but have rarely explored the potential of nutrition education of preschoolers as change agents. OBJECTIVES: This study sought to assess the effect of nutrition education targeting preschool children and their caregivers on their consumption of vitamin A-biofortified orange-fleshed sweetpotato (OFSP) in rural farm households in Homa Bay County, Kenya. METHODS: A total of 431 preschooler-caregiver pairs from 15 village-level clusters were recruited into a randomized controlled trial. The sample was randomized into 1 control (3 villages) and 3 treatment groups (4 villages each). Treatments involved channeling nutrition education to preschoolers through their learning materials (preschooler treatment); the caregivers through their mobile phones (caregiver treatment); and to both preschoolers and their caregivers simultaneously (integrated treatment). Baseline and follow-up household-level surveys were conducted with the caregivers, and consumption data were collected from the preschoolers using a child dietary diversity register. Class teachers sought 24-h consumption recalls of the preschoolers for 19 consecutive schooldays. RESULTS: The results of a zero-inflated Poisson regression showed that the phone-mediated and multichanneled nutrition education approaches significantly increased the number of days of OFSP consumption. The integrated nutrition education approach significantly increased the preschoolers' likelihood to consume OFSP, number of OFSP consumption days, and likelihood to consume it more than once per week by 11%, 77%, and 20%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Nutrition education through OFSP-branded preschoolers' learning materials and phone-mediated messages provides effective nudges to the caregivers to feed their preschoolers regularly with OFSP. This could have implications for realizing sustainable nutrition programs in biofortified crop-growing areas.

Do Nutrition Education Approaches With Preschoolers and Their Caregivers Influence Retention of Biofortified Orange-Fleshed Sweet Potato on Farms? Evidence From Homa Bay County, Kenya.

BACKGROUND: Biofortified staples have been promoted widely in sub-Saharan Africa to combat micronutrient deficiencies. Contemporary projects are increasingly using elementary schools to target households with these foods. OBJECTIVE: This study assessed the effects of integrated nutrition education approaches, targeting preschoolers and their caregivers, on retention of orange-fleshed sweet potato (OFSP) on farms in the second season after lapse of free vine dissemination initiatives. METHODS: Rural farming households, with preschoolers and no prior engagement with OFSP, were targeted. A multistage sample of 431 preschooler-caregiver pairs was recruited for a cluster-randomized controlled trial. After issuing routine OFSP promotion activities, 15 village-level clusters of the pairs were randomized into 1 control group (3 villages) and 3 treatment arms (4 villages each) for the interventions. Baseline and follow-up household-level survey data were collected from the caregivers. The interventions included: (1) OFSP-branded exercise books, posters, and a poem to preschoolers only; (2) OFSP-oriented mobile phone mediated text messages to caregivers only; and (3) both 1 and 2 provided to individual households concurrently. Interventions 1 and 2 were single-channeled, while 3 was multichanneled. We estimated the intention-to-treat (ITT) and treatment-on-the-treated (TOT) effects using a binary logit model and a special regressor method, respectively. RESULTS: Only the multi-channeled nutrition education approach had significant effects (ITT = 0.167, P = .001; TOT = .243, P = .007) on the caregivers' likelihood to retain OFSP on their farms. CONCLUSIONS: The finding implies that multi-channeled agriculture nutrition education interventions through Early Childhood Development institutions can be effective in ensuring sustainable adoption of OFSP.