Impact of world food programme’s purchase for progress pilot project on farm incomes in Uasin gishu and Narok counties, Kenya

Abstract

The World Food Programme’s Purchase for Progress (WFP P4P) Pilot project in Kenya has been under implementation since 2009 . Some of the notable achievements of the pilot proj ect include improved access to credit, inputs and group marketing while the main challenges were contract defaults and lack of storage facilities. The P4P project was initiated by WFP in order to procure food mainly from small scale farmers with the aim of enabling the farmer groups to transit from informal to structured trade through the sale of high quality food. The P4P project was aimed at increasing smallholder ’s agricultural productivity (especially maize) at the farm level and improving the livelihoo d of farmers in terms of food security and farm income . The project has been in operation for three years but its impacts are not well understood. This study was therefore undertaken to fill this gap in knowledge . The study evaluated the impact of the Pur chase for Progress (P4P) project on household incomes in Kenya. The data were collected from 250 farmers (comprising of 113 participants and 137 non participants) in Uasin Gishu and Narok counties of Kenya . This study employed the propensity score matching (PSM) method to evaluate the impact of the P4P project on the farmer’s income (maize gross margins were used a proxy for farm incomes ) . The findings from this study indicated that farmers’ decisions to participate in the P4P project were significantly in fluenced by gender of the household head, farm size, and price of maize

access to extension and credit. The study also found that the project participants had significantly higher incomes per acre per year than the non - P4P participants sugges ting that the P4P project had a positive impact on farmer’s incomes. Therefore, the government, WFP and other stakeholders should come up with interventions that encourage improved participation levels in P4P such as improved access to credit, inputs and extension services .