COVID-19 and Smallholder Chicken Farmers in Eastern Kenya: Assessing Resilience and Coping Strategies

Abstract

The study examined the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on chicken farmers in Machakos County, Eastern Kenya, focusing on their resilience levels. A multistage random sampling approach was used to obtain primary data from 582 households engaging in chicken farming. Descriptive statistics revealed that a substantial portion of these farmers (67%) demonstrated low resilience in response to the pandemics multifaceted disruptions spanning for instance from production, marketing, income, chicken enterprise operations, and social well-being. Furthermore, the research highlighted the key challenges such as feed shortages (75%), increased predation (70%), market disruptions (69%), and income declines (63%). Farmers adopted coping strategies like scavenging for feed, reducing flock sizes, and homemade feed formulations. Econometric analysis revealed that education, income, flock size, credit access, and extension services as resilience boosters, while high feed costs and distant markets reduced resilience. The study recommends that the National and County Governments collaborate with stakeholders to initiate gender disaggregated and accessible credit sources and utilize mobile input vendors to enhance access to feeds and vaccines for chicken farmers. Furthermore, increasing awareness of pandemic coping mechanisms through extension services and educated farmers should be strongly recommended. The study also calls for government and institutional interventions to enhance farmers’ adaptive capacities against future shocks.