Assessment of the Adoption of Livestock Health Technologies by Smallholder Livestock Keepers: The Case of Strategic Helminth Control in Kericho County

Omwenga Samuel*, Kidali John and Nginyi J

 

Full Length Research Paper  I Published July,2017

 

Journal of Agricultural Science and Food Technology  Vol. 3 (4), pp.59-63

 

 

ABSTRACT

 

A study to investigate the adoption of strategic helminth control in smallholder farms in Kericho County that was carried out from July to October 2009. Out of 202 farmers interviewed, 91 were part of an epidemiological study on helminth control 9 years earlier who had been given advice on strategic helminth control. The rest were control farmers. The results indicate most of the farmers knew how to control worms but very few actually practiced it correctly. Only 1.4% dewormed their animals at the onset of the rains in April and July as recommended by the researchers. Another group (37.5%) dewormed every three months irrespective of the time of the year while a small proportion dewormed only clinical cases of helminthoses. This study concluded that adoption of strategic worm control was low and the reasons are largely due to financial constraints. It is recommended that in addition to knowledge dissemination mechanisms for making livestock health services affordable to farmers are needed.

Key Words: Livestock diseases, worm control and technology adoption.
 

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