Smallholder farmers' preferences for public expenditure priorities to support maize productivity: evidence from a best–worst scaling experiment in western Kenya
- 1Department of Agricultural Economics, Egerton University, Nakuru, Kenya
- 2Tegemeo Institute of Agricultural Policy and Development, Nairobi, Kenya
Abstract
Understanding how smallholder farmers want public resources allocated is essential for designing effective agricultural policies, especially in the maize sub-sector, where public interventions often compete for limited fiscal resources. This paper determined smallholder farmers’ preferences for enhancing maize productivity in western Kenya. Using survey data from 1,531 smallholder farmers, the study applied a best–worst scaling experiment in which farmers evaluated seven policy options across seven choice sets. Count analysis was used to rank aggregate policy preferences, while latent class modeling was used to identify heterogeneity in farmers’ preferences across classes. Results show that farmers strongly prefer improving access to soil-testing services, followed by increasing the quantity of subsidized fertilizer available to smallholder farmers, providing low-interest, unsecured loans, and increasing the number of well-trained and well-resourced public extension agents. Lower-ranked options included creating more market opportunities, improving access to agricultural lime, and improving rural roads and bridges. The latent class analysis further revealed heterogeneity in the preferences of smallholder farmers in western Kenya. The findings highlight the need to align public expenditure decisions with farmers’ expressed priorities, particularly when agricultural budgets are limited, and to design policy interventions that respond to the constraints farmers consider most urgent.
Related
- Combining stated and revealed preferences to define smallholder cattle breeding objectives in northwest Ethiopia: Evidence for breeding program design
- Preferences for olive oil between taste and healthiness: an incentivised experiment in Morocco and Tunisia
- Dairy farmers’ preferences for reducing pesticide use: does workload matter? Evidence from a discrete choice experiment among dairy farmers in Brittany, France
- HIV self-testing preferences among adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) in urban settings in Uganda: A discrete choice experiment
- Socioeconomic and biophysical drivers of cocoa yield variability in smallholder farms in Côte d’Ivoire
BibTeX
@article{orawo2026smallholder,
title = {{Smallholder farmers' preferences for public expenditure priorities to support maize productivity: evidence from a best–worst scaling experiment in western Kenya}},
author = {Fido Orawo and Dickson Okello and John Olwande},
journal = {Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
doi = {10.3389/fsufs.2026.1884660},
url = {https://doi.org/10.3389/fsufs.2026.1884660},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Smallholder farmers' preferences for public expenditure priorities to support maize productivity: evidence from a best–worst scaling experiment in western Kenya
AU - Fido Orawo
AU - Dickson Okello
AU - John Olwande
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/11/03
JO - Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems
DO - 10.3389/fsufs.2026.1884660
UR - https://doi.org/10.3389/fsufs.2026.1884660
AB - Understanding how smallholder farmers want public resources allocated is essential for designing effective agricultural policies, especially in the maize sub-sector, where public interventions often compete for limited fiscal resources. This paper determined smallholder farmers’ preferences for enhancing maize productivity in western Kenya. Using survey data from 1,531 smallholder farmers, the study applied a best–worst scaling experiment in which farmers evaluated seven policy options across seven choice sets. Count analysis was used to rank aggregate policy preferences, while latent class modeling was used to identify heterogeneity in farmers’ preferences across classes. Results show that farmers strongly prefer improving access to soil-testing services, followed by increasing the quantity of subsidized fertilizer available to smallholder farmers, providing low-interest, unsecured loans, and increasing the number of well-trained and well-resourced public extension agents. Lower-ranked options included creating more market opportunities, improving access to agricultural lime, and improving rural roads and bridges. The latent class analysis further revealed heterogeneity in the preferences of smallholder farmers in western Kenya. The findings highlight the need to align public expenditure decisions with farmers’ expressed priorities, particularly when agricultural budgets are limited, and to design policy interventions that respond to the constraints farmers consider most urgent.
SN - 2571-581X
ER -