2019 Volume 12 Issue 2 Pages 73-91
In this study, we analyzed the rice cultivation and management in the irrigation schemes of the National Irrigation Board (NIB) and in three small schemes managed by local farmers so called outgrowers, which are distributed near the Lake Victoria in Western Kenya. As a result, we found big differences between NIB schemes and outgrowers’ schemes in their farm size and production. In NIB scheme, the average farm size per household was approximately one hector and their yield was 4.5 kg ha-1 which is double size and 1.5 times higher yield comparing outgrowers. Our survey suggests that this higher yield is brought by large amount of fertilizer and pesticide input and also appropriate frequency and timing of weeding. Necessarily, total production of NIB farmers is bigger, and they succeeded to sale about 3.5 ton per household, whereas outgrowers achieved only around 30% of it. The expenditure for rice cultivation of NIB farmers was about twice as large as outgrowers, but due to their big sales volume, their cash income from rice production after removing production cost at least 5 times and at most 26 times of outgrowers’. In all schemes, labor costs was the major component of management expenses. Outgrowers spent for wage labors, while they paid small cost for fertilizer and agricultural chemicals. Additionally, to meet this cash demand, many of them sold their livestock which was their important assets.
