Is Fertilizer Subsidy in the Central Regional Economic Block (CEREB) of Kenya Effective in Socio -Economic Livelihood Improvement Among Smallholder Farmers in the advent of Climate Change? – An Empirical Analysis

Abstract

Production input subsidies have been provided by governments the world over through time. This is more so in the developed world where most commodities are highly subsidized. In most Sub-Saharan Africa (SAA), subsidies were embraced in the 1970s, 1980s and even the 1990s before structural adjustment programmes led by the World Bank stopped or reduced them due to being unsustainable. With decline in crop productivity and food security, the subsidies were re-introduced into the Sub-Saharan Africa region in the 2000s especially with the Malawi success case. However, due to need for targeting, cost control and avoiding crowding out the private sector, the reintroduced subsidies were smart in terms of targeting. Kenya has been providing fertilizers subsidies to smallholder farmers with increasing investment in the programme after the success case of the National Accelerated Agricultural Inputs Access Programme (NAAIAP) of 2007 for both fertilizer and seed. However, the major subsidy is on fertilizer to make it affordable and accessible to smallholder farmers for increased productivity. The Central Region Economic Block (CEREB) consists of ten of the forty-seven counties in Kenya situated at the center of the country around Mount Kenya. These are counties that produce a lot of food crops and are most of them are fairly highly populated. They use a lot of fertilizers due to poor soils. The study sought to establish the impact of fertilizer subsidies on productivity and livelihood improvement of smallholder farmers in the CEREB region and the moderating effect of climate change on the relationship. The study focused on Sub County Agricultural Officers (SCAOs) and senior government agricultural officers in the counties as the respondents given the critical role they played between the national government and farmers especially in subsidy management. A total of 63 SCAOs were targeted with 30 senior officers (three each from each county agricultural office) using structured questionnaires and interview schedules respectively. Smallholder farmers’ use of commercial fertilizers, use of subsidized fertilizers, ease of access, targeting of the recipients of the subsidy and the moderating effect of climate change formed the independent variables while smallholder farmers livelihood improvement was the dependent variable. Inferential and regression analysis using SPSS Version 27 revealed that access of the fertilizer subsidy as and when needed as well as targeting of beneficiary farmers had statistically significant effect on the farmers livelihood improvement. It was concluded that the government needed to streamline the supply side and targeting of fertilizers subsidies to have an impact on smallholder farmer livelihoods improvement.

Key words: Fertilizer subsidy, ease of access, targeting, livelihood improvement

DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/18-4-02

Publication date: April 30^th 2026