Abstract:
Agricultural value chains must establish mutually beneficial and sustainable relationships with farmers
and farmer groups to ensure commodity supply and farmers’ livelihoods are more resilient. Small-scale
farmers, comprising most of the world's farming population are important actors in the agricultural value
chains. A study was done to determine whether farmer involvement in the maize seed multiplication
programme impacted their livelihoods in Baringo South, Kenya. The study focused on whether farmers’
ability to repay the credit, whether they make savings from maize seed multiplication programme, the
sustainability of such savings and how the savings translate to consistency in meeting family basic needs.
Results indicated that, sustainability of farmer savings from the maize seed programme was statistically
significant in relation to farmers’ livelihoods; where, with a unit increase in sustainability of savings, the
odds of a farmer inability to consistently provide for all his family basic needs decreased by 1.767. Only
61.8% of farmers reported to be making some income savings in the maize seed multiplication programme
while 22.1% reported being unable to make any savings. Therefore, to enable farmers realize better
productivity from maize seed multiplication programme and adequately sustain their family livelihoods, the
study recommends; building farmer capacity on financial management and providing environment
conducive for farmers so as to minimize losses and safeguard their hard-earned income.
