Factors influencing smallholder dairy cattle productivity in Tigania East sub-county, Meru County

Dairy farming complements both food and cash crop farming in Kenya. Due to limited land sizes, smallholder dairy farming is popular and dominates the dairy sector in terms of milk production. Low milk production is a major constraint in Tigania East SubCounty despite the fact that the surrounding Sub-Counties produce high amounts of milk. A survey was carried out in Tigania East Sub-County involving 156 smallholder farmers randomly selected across three agro-ecological zones (AEZ1, AEZ2, and AEZ3) with each zone having 52 respondents. Purposive, stratified random sampling was used to select the respondents. These farmers were practising either zero or semi-zero grazing system and they were interviewed using structured questionnaire. The objectives of the study were-; Establishing social-economic factors influencing milk productivity in Tigania East Sub-County; Breeds and breeding factors influencing milk productivity; Dairy cattle management factors causing poor milk productivity in the Sub-County; Agro-ecological factors influencing milk productivity in the Sub-County. The data collected was analysed using SPSS version 21 and presented as percentages, means and standard deviations. Farmers who practised dairy farming as a major source of income were 27 per cent. Majority of the farmers (78.40 %) owned 1 -2 dairy cattle with a mean experience of twelve years in dairy farming. The levels of income, the decision making on dairy farming, levels of education and the level of experience were the key socioeconomic factors with significance p-values of 0.046, 0.030, 0.02 and 0.034 respectively. The type of breed used, the breeding strategies used such as Artificial insemination were significant with p-values of < 0.05. Farmers were likely to increase their milk levels through quality feeds, having adequate relevant knowledge, increasing the acreage under fodder and supplementing animal feeds, with Wald chi-square values of 0.01 , 1.411, 0.637 and 1.73 respectively and p values of 0.01, 0.025, 0.01, and 0.005 respectively, indicating statistically significant factors. The grazing system, use of extension services and record keeping, with p-value of 0.005, 0.047 and 0.005 were significant. ANOVA for the AEZs had p-value of 0.58 indicating no significant influence on milk productivity. Improving on these significant factors would help improve dairy industry in the study area.