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A farm gate-to-consumer value chain analysis of Kenya's maize marketing system

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dc.contributor.author Kirimi, Lilian
dc.contributor.author Sitko, Nicholas
dc.contributor.author T.S., Jayne
dc.contributor.author Karin, Francis
dc.contributor.author Muyanga, Milu
dc.contributor.author Sheahan, Megan
dc.contributor.author Flock, James
dc.contributor.author Bor, Gilbert
dc.date.issued 2011
dc.date.accessioned 2021-03-19T10:11:58Z
dc.date.available 2021-03-19T10:11:58Z
dc.identifier.uri http://41.89.96.81:8080/xmlui/handle/123456789/2324
dc.description.abstract Background: Maize is the most important staple food in Kenyans’ diets, providing roughly a third of the caloric intake for Kenya’s population. Maize is also the central crop in Kenyan agriculture, being grown by 98% of Kenya’s 3.5 million smallholder farmers. Maize marketing and trade policy in Kenya has been dominated by two major challenges. The first challenge concerns the classic food price dilemma: how to keep farm prices high enough to provide production incentives for farmers while at the same time keeping them low enough to ensure poor consumers’ access to food. The second major challenge has been how to effectively deal with food price instability, which is frequently identified as a major impediment to smallholder productivity growth and food security. In attempting to cope with these interrelated challenges, policymakers have grappled with issues of the appropriate role of the state in marketing and pricing, and the extent to which variable import tariffs and trade controls can promote the achievement of national policy objectives. A third and as yet inadequately appreciated maize policy challenge, one that is facing the agricultural sector more generally, is the growing problem of access to land and the shrinking size of smallholder farms. Partly as a result of declining landholding sizes in Kenya, most rural farm households have become net buyers of maize. The potential for transforming smallholder farmers from maize buyers into surplus producers is becoming increasingly difficult as population growth and land pressures continue unabated. Over half of the smallholder farms in Kenya are less than 1.5 hectares. In this context, a major, yet underappreciated, agricultural policy issue is how to achieve broad-based smallholder-led agricultural growth under conditions of increasingly acute land pressures. Identifying the appropriate role and potential of maize intensification in densely populated rural areas is needed to address this important policy question. en_US
dc.description.sponsorship Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation under the Guiding Investments in Sustainable Agricultural Markets (GISAMA) Initiative. en_US
dc.language.iso en en_US
dc.publisher Tegemeo Institute en_US
dc.subject A farm gate-to-consumer -- Maize marketing system en_US
dc.title A farm gate-to-consumer value chain analysis of Kenya's maize marketing system en_US
dc.title.alternative Working Paper 44 en_US
dc.type Working Paper en_US


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  • Tegemeo Institute [96]
    Tegemeo Institute of Agricultural Policy and Development is a policy research institute under the Division of Research and Extension ofEgerton University. The Institute is established under Statute 23 (14-t) of the Egerton University Statutes, 2013 under the Universities Act , 2012 (No. 42 of 2012) and its Instruments.

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