The Relationships between Farmers’ Perceptions of Relevance and Quality of Services Provided at Plant Clinics, and Farmers’ Demand for Services from the Plant Clinics in Nakuru-North Sub-County, Kenya
Keywords:
Farmers’ Demand for plant clinics services, Perceptions of Quality of Services, Perceptions of relevance Plant Clinics, Plant Doctor, Small Scale Farmer.Abstract
Plant Clinics were introduced in Nakuru North Sub-County in 2010 with an objective of improving farmers’ access to crop protection extension services subsequently reducing incidences of crop pests and diseases. The services are provided to the farmers on demand. Since their introduction, farmers’ demand for the services has been low. Many farmers are therefore not benefiting from the services. In order to understand the scenario and adopt policies that will ensure many farmers benefit from plant clinics services, it is crucial to establish the factors which determine Farmers’ Demand for Plant Clinics Services. The objective of this study was to establish relationships between selected factors which are likely to determine farmers’ demand for services from plant clinics and farmers’ demand for services from plant clinics in Nakuru-North Sub-County. The selected factors were farmers’ perception of relevance, and farmers’ perception of quality of services provided at the plant clinics. A Correlation study was conducted on 152 small scale farmers randomly selected from 6,000 small scale farmers in 4 out of the 12 locations of the Sub-County.
A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data from the farmers. Data was analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) for windows. Descriptive statistics was used to describe the sample of the study in the form of frequency distribution, percentages and means. The relationship between independent and dependent variables was analyzed using Chi-square statistics and interpreted at ?=0.05 level of significance. The study established that there is a statistically significant relationship between Farmers’ Perceptions of the Quality of Services Provided at the Plant Clinics and the Farmers Demand for Services from Plant Clinics in Nakuru North Sub-County. The study concluded that Farmers’ Perceptions of Quality of Services Provided at the Plant Clinics determines the Farmers Demand for Plant Clinics Services and improving on it would improve Farmers Demand for Plant Clinics Services and subsequently reducing crop losses from pests and diseases. It recommends that more resources should be allocated to improve the Quality of Services Provided at the Plant Clinics.
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