@article{jbms20261443,
author={{Mohamed, Bashir Hussein and Muathe, Stephen M. A. and Kilika, James M.},
title={Policy Incentives and the Factors Affecting the Growth of Contract Poultry Farming in Kenya: An Empirical Analysis},
journal={Journal of Business and Management Sciences},
volume={14},
number={4},
pages={107--111},
year={2026},
url={https://pubs.sciepub.com/jbms/14/4/3},
issn={2333-4533},
abstract={Kenya's poultry sector supplies affordable protein and supports many rural and urban livelihoods, yet its registered firms have found it hard to grow. The value of poultry meat produced in the country fell from KSh 55.8 billion in 2022 to KSh 34.7 billion in 2023 on almost unchanged output, feed accounts for up to 82 percent of the cost of chicken meat, and recorded poultry imports rose from US$1.96 million in 2021 to US$5.01 million in 2024. Contract farming, a standing agreement under which an integrating firm provides chicks, feed, technical support and an assured market while a producer commits to agreed volumes and standards, is often put forward as a remedy, but its place among the factors that shape the growth of poultry businesses in Kenya has attracted little quantitative study. This study treated contract farming as the most formal expression of value chain networking and examined whether networking affects business growth among the nineteen registered poultry firms in Nairobi City County. It was anchored on the Upper Echelon Theory, Strategic Leadership Theory and the Resource-Based View and used a descriptive and explanatory cross-sectional survey of 209 top echelon and business unit managers drawn by proportionate stratified random sampling, of whom 200 responded. Networking, measured through communication, negotiation, shared resources and trust, was practised only to a moderate extent (M = 2.95; SD = 0.537), yet it carried the largest coefficient of the four dimensions of strategic leadership (B = 0.282; p = .002) in a model that explained 49.4 percent of the variance in firm performance. Managers attributed growth to supply chain meetings, negotiated agreements and research partnerships. The study proposes model contracts with accessible dispute resolution, incentives for verified integrator and producer schemes, and industry platforms convened by government and the feed manufacturers' association.},
doi={10.12691/jbms-14-4-3}
publisher={Science and Education Publishing}
}