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Abstract
Kenya’s smallholder agriculture remains a major engine of rural growth and livelihood
improvement, yet it is largely semi-subsistence. Therefore, any pathway that can lift large
numbers of the rural poor out of poverty will require some form of transformation of
smallholder agriculture into a more commercialized production system. This study used a
three-year panel household data set collected in 2000, 2004 and 2007 and across nine agroecological
zones of Kenya to assess the extent of market participation among poor
smallholder farmers in Kenya with a view to identifying constraints to market participation
among and potential market opportunities for the poor. Descriptive results reveal differences
in market participation across selected commodity groups among poor and non-poor
households, with poor households having generally lower market participation. Some
characteristics of the poor households that could partly explain this low market participation
include low literacy levels, small land sizes, low asset values, low access to credit and limited
ability to produce surpluses for the market. In terms of factors that could enhance market
participation for poor households, we find that land size and membership in farmer
organization play significant roles. These results suggest that any hope for the poor to
participate in markets and make any meaningful gains from agriculture lies in improving
productivity of their land as well as improving their access to land. Increasing social capital
through promotion of collective action among poor households can also be of great value in
enhancing their access to markets.