Farm Concern International conducted a Validation Value Chain Assessment survey under the USAID Feed the Future: Kenya Agricultural Value Chain Enterprises, KAVES Project to supplement and validate data already available from Government agencies and other studies. The desk review, field and trade survey was aimed at identifying the gaps and opportunities along the target value chains. 

The validation assessment for maize was carried out in Bungoma, Homa Bay, Kisii, Uasin Gishu, Meru and Makueni Counties. 

Focus Group Discussions with farmers were conducted to determine various value chain actors and levels of engagement with farmers in the production and marketing of maize grains. The study revealed that along the maize value chain, farmers interact more with input suppliers especially seeds (30%). This could be attributed to high adoption of improved and clean maize seed, which are high yielding. Increased adoption of new improved seeds has resulted in farmers seeking more knowledge on the agronomic practices of the new varieties from the extension service providers. 

At marketing stage, it was found that farmers interact more with village level brokers (22.5%) and rural town brokers (12.5%) as compared to formal buyers such as processors (2.5%) and institutional buyers (2.5%). This can be attributed to farmers’ inability to meet quality requirements, low volumes that result in inconsistent supply as well as farmers not adopting collective marketing for their grains.