Factors Affecting Commercial Rabbit Production in Kaplamai WARD, Trans-Nzoia County

Abstract

The study focused on evaluating factors affecting commercial rabbit production. Many rabbit farmers in Kenya rear rabbits in small scale mainly for consumption purposes thus the adoption of commercial rabbit production have remained low despite the profitability of the sector as seen from successful rabbit farmers. The study evaluated the reasons causing low commercialization of rabbit production. Such reasons included low access to extension services, low access to markets and marketing information and low existing level of technology on rabbit rearing. Specific objectives of the study was to evaluate those influencing factors by determining the extent to which extension services influence the adoption of commercial rabbit rearing, to assess the influence of market access on rabbit production and to establish the existing level of technology among rabbit farmers. The case study was Kaplamai Ward but the findings are expected to help rabbit farmers in the whole country, ministry of agriculture and other individuals who are interested. The findings will be useful too in contributing to food security agenda in Kenya. A conceptual framework was applied in the study to evaluate the relationships that exist between the independent variables, extension services, technical knowledge and market availability and the dependent variables; growth of rabbit rearing. Questionnaires interviews and observation were used to collect data. After data collection correlation coefficient was done to establish the relationships that existed between variables in order to interpret data and bring sense out of it which was used in contributing towards solving the problem.