Influence of Camel breeds on Productivity in Mandera County, Kenya

Abstract

Mandera County relies mainly on camel production for income and livelihoods. However, the trade in camel and camel products remains largely under exploited. Efforts at exploiting the potential in the camel and its products have been made, albeit to a very low extent, but a lot remains to be done if camel productivity is to be maximized. It was against this background that the current study sought to investigate the influence of camel breeds on productivity in Mandera County. The objective of the research was to find the influence of camel breeds on productivity of meat, milk, hides and other products. Basic Needs Theory anchored the study. Descriptive research design was adopted. Both purposive and random sampling techniques were used to select respondents. Random sampling technique was applied on a population of 43,691 camel dealers in Mandera County, from which a sample of 396 households was obtained. 100 respondents were purposively selected from each Sub County. Government officers that work with camel dealers were interviewed. Reliability and dependability of the data were confirmed before analysis using SPSS Version 26. Cronbach alpha coefficient of 0.778 was realized for reliability of constructs of camel breeds. Descriptive statistics were used to explain the findings, while information from government officers was analyzed qualitatively for triangulation purposes. Hypothesis testing indicated that effects of breeds on camel productivity was statistically significant (β=0.201, p=0.032). Results revealed that effects of camel breeds were positively and significantly correlated to camel productivity at r=0.733. It was concluded that Camel breeds were critical to improvement of productivity. The study recommended that Mandera County invests in acquisition of adequate and good breeds of camel especially bulls and avail them in to the farmers so as to maximize productive cycles of female camels that often lack bulls when on heat losing production.