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Effect of the National Accelerated Agricultural Inputs Access Subsidy Program on Fertilizer Usage and Food Production in Kakamega County, Western Kenya

Despite 25 years of concerted efforts by African governments to adopt consistent policies for increasing food production, hunger and poverty are still prevalent in the continent. Using Bernanke's conceptualization of the credit channel theory of monetary policy, the purpose of this correlational study was to investigate whether a subsidy program, the National Accelerated Agricultural Inputs Access Program (NAAIAP), affected the rates of fertilizer usage and food production in Kakamega County, Western Kenya. Purposive stratified sampling was used to select 114 participants consisting of 72 farmers in each of the 2 groups: NAAIAP beneficiaries and nonbeneficiaries. Participants completed a survey on fertilizer usage rates, income earned, and surplus maize yield. Data were analyzed using multiple regression to test whether there was a difference between the beneficiary and nonbeneficiary groups regarding income, surplus product, and the dependent variable of fertilizer usage. Results indicated that beneficiaries of NAAIAP credit program bought and prepared to use fertilizers significantly earlier than did their counterparts. Further, the results of multiple regression indicated significant positive correlation (p <.05) between income earned from sale of surplus maize yield and quantity of fertilizer used by farmers in Kakamega County. These findings suggest that NAAIAP improved food security and farmers' income in Kakamega Count. This study contributes to social change by recommending to subsidy program administrators in Kakamega County to consider policy changes. Such policy changes may improve program outreach to resource-poor farmers and improve income and product yield in the agricultural sector of Kenya.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:waldenu.edu/oai:scholarworks.waldenu.edu:dissertations-4906
Date01 January 2017
CreatorsMavuthu, Abednego Kiwia
PublisherScholarWorks
Source SetsWalden University
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
SourceWalden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

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