Factors influencing the usage of modern warehousing facilities by cereal farmers in turbo east and west sub-counties of Uasin Gishu county, Kenya

Abstract

A large number of warehouses exist worldwide including the state of the art, professionally managed warehouses as well as company stores such as raw materials and components stores, finished goods stores etc. warehousing activity links the producer with the customer and plays critical role of providing a desired level of customer service at the lowest possible total cost. Nowadays warehousing function has become one of the most important functions of a firm’s logistics system. Modern warehousing of cereals is causing a devastating effect to cereals farmers all over the world. Farmers are the people who are better placed to adopt the usage of modern warehouses in their storage of cereals because of the high benefits. Although the Kenyan government realized the magnitude of the problem and introduced some public modern warehousing facilities with Eldoret town that forms part of Turbo East and West, its usage and adoption is so slow. This study analyzed the factors that influence the usage of modern warehousing facilities in Turbo East and Turbo West sub counties of Uasin Gishu County. It examined the frequency of usage of these modern warehousing facilities, availability of these modern warehousing facilities. The study used the innovation decision process theory Roges (1998) and the theory of planned behavior. Most of these theories and models used social psychology framework to study believes knowledge, thoughts, behavior and perception of people. The methodology of the study used survey research design in which data was collected using questionnaires. The unit of analysis was the farmers in Turbo East. Data were analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. Descriptive statistics include use of frequency tables while inferential statistics include use of the chi square. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to compute the statistics.