Who Offers Veterinary Services to Smallholder Dairy Farmers in Western Kenya? Lessons from Kakamega County

Abstract

Liberalization of both clinical and artificial insemination services in Kenya allowed many players into the livestock service sector. This study examines key providers of veterinary services and the factors that influence the delivery of veterinary services among smallholder dairy farmers in Kakamega County. Socio-economic data were collected through a household survey of 128 randomly selected households and 30 purposively selected service providers. The descriptive statistics revealed that 59% of all cases were attended to by animal health assistants, with private animal health assistants attending to 38% of all the cases. The results of the multinomial logit econometric model estimated with self-treatment as the base category revealed a negative influence of distance on the choice of government service providers but a positive relationship with tropical livestock unit, treatment cost and education level of the farmer.