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Between March and April 2017, GeoPoll conducted surveys with more than 250 Kenyan farmers on behalf of the Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund (AECF) and Triple Line Consulting Ltd. The surveys targeted banana, French beans and papaya farmers selling crops to Mount Kenyan Gardens Ltd. under the AECF-Mount Kenya Gardens project. Results from the survey helped Mount Kenyan Gardens and AECF understand how farmers benefit from the program’s training and provide valuable insights into how the project improves agribusiness in counties near Mount Kenya region.
Using the phone numbers of farmers provided by Mount Kenyan Gardens, GeoPoll leveraged its multi-modal data collection capabilities to conduct SMS and computer assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) surveys. During the first round of data collection in March 2017, GeoPoll surveyed 82 banana farmers, 87 French bean farmers, and 66 papaya farmers. The surveys collected data on the quantity of crops planted and produced during the last harvest, number of crop harvests per year, and the average amount of money spent on fertilizer, manure, chemicals, and pesticides.
In addition, famers were asked if they had grown banana, French beans and papaya before doing business with Mount Kenya Gardens and whether they had hired laborers to work on their farm plots during the last harvest season.
82% of banana farmers, 66% of French bean farmers, and 68% of papaya farmers (68 percent) reported they had grown the crops on their farms before.
67% of banana farmers, 84% of French bean farmers, and 71% of papaya farmers reported hiring laborers during the past harvest season.
After the initial round of data collection, GeoPoll conducted a follow up survey in April 2017 with 30 farmers that participated in the first survey – 10 banana farmers, 10 French bean farmers, and 10 papaya farmers. All farmers selected for the follow up survey had grown bananas, French beans and papayas on before selling to Mount Kenya Gardens and had hired laborers to work on their farms during the last harvest season.
Data from the follow up survey enabled Mount Kenya Gardens to understand how the AECF-Mount Kenya Gardens project affected change in quantities of crops planted and produced for harvest, and prices received by farmers for harvested crops. In addition, the survey also provided Mount Kenya Gardens with more information about hired labor –including jobs performed by laborers, average salary of laborers, and the number of laborers hired.
GeoPoll’s work with AECF and Mount Kenya Gardens builds off of its extensive experience collecting multiple types of food security and agriculture data – including data on food prices, market operability status, crop harvests, and frequency of meal consumption for clients including the World Food Program and the International Food Policy Research Institute.
Image credits: plantafruit.org