2009 Volume 4 Issue 2 Pages 118-127
Approximately 80% of Kenya's population lives in rural areas and derives its livelihood largely from agriculture. Agriculture makes up about 26% of Kenya's gross domestic product, and banana production occupies 2% of Kenya's arable land. Bananas are grown both as a source of food and household income to millions of rural Kenyans; however, production has been declining in the last 2 decades. My objective was to examine banana production and marketing in Kiambu East District, with the aims of improving levels of banana production by small-scale farmers and making recommendations to improve marketing efficiency. A structured questionnaire was given to farmers in 3 Divisions of Kiambu East District: Githunguri, Municipality, and Kiambaa. A frontier production function was established, and results indicated that farmers operated at about 60% of the optimum production level because of technical inefficiency, resulting in low levels of production by individual farmers. If farmers received training on how to manage their traditional bananas and organized into marketing groups, they could improve their bargaining power and increase household income to as much as 3 times current levels. Farmers therefore should form production and marketing groups to grow and market their bananas collectively. Farmers also need to be given management training and financial assistance to grow higher yielding varieties of bananas (e.g., Tissue Culture bananas). In addition farmers need to be trained on indigenous post-harvest technology to realize increased household incomes.
