Influence of Farmer Knowledge and Skills on Performance of Fish Farming in Kwanza Constituency, Trans-Nzoia County, Kenya

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of Farmer Knowledge and Skills on Performance of Fish Farming in Kwanza Constituency - Trans-Nzoia County, Kenya.  Despite the Kenyan government putting in tremendous effort to improve fish farming, fish production has been persistently going down in Kwanza sub-county in the last five years. A descriptive survey research design was adopted using both quantitative and qualitative methods. The study targeted all 401 documented fish farmers, both small and large scale, active and dormant; spread across the four wards of Kwanza Sub-county namely Keiyo, Kwanza, Kapomboi and Bidii wards. The study also targeted four ward fishery extension officers and the sub-county fishery extension officer. Krejcie and Morgan's sample size calculation was employed to get 196 fish farmers for the sample. Simple random sampling technique was used in selecting both active and past fish farmers with one or more fish ponds in every ward to participate in the study. Collected data was processed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software. The findings indicated that farmer knowledge and skills had a significant influence on the performance of fish farming at 0.05 with unstandardized beta coefficient of 0.098. The study concludes that farmer knowledge and skills greatly influenced adoption of new farming techniques in fish farming. Extension services were equally influential on the performance of fish farming. As much as extension services positively influenced fish farming, the services were few and strained in some areas. This proved that adequate knowledge and skills are lacking in the study area. The county government should therefore make a point of employing more extension officers owing to public demand. The study recommendations include the view that community involvement ought to be embraced before a project is launched of the nature that proper monitoring and evaluation is done. Additionally, training seminars should be tailored to match such needs as pertains feasibility of the studies as well as that extension services by agricultural service support are really needed by farmers and a follow up to be carried out regularly. Finally, future researchers should dwell on extensive feasibility studies to be carried out in establishing proper demographic factors about a population for swift program initiation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation for targeted goals accomplishments.