Influence of Gender, Age, Marital Status and Farm Size on Coffee Production: A Case of Kisii County, Kenya

Coffee is the fifth GDP earner employing over 600,000 households in Kenya. Coffee farmers are elderly averaging 51 years and a few young; this has had an influence in adoption of new technologies and reduced coffee production from 130,000 MT in 1989 to 50,000 MT in 2012 despite its profitability. The objective of this study was to assess the impact of gender, age, marital status and farm size on coffee production. Multistage and purposive random sampling technique was used to get qualitative and quantitative data using structured questionnaires and interviews on a sample size of 227 farmers from a total population of 69,000 and target population of 18,400 coffee farmers in Kisii County. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and inferential statistics at 0.05 level of significance, using Pearson Correlation. The research finding established mean production per tree which was 1.77 kilograms and Standard Deviation of 3.23, the average age of coffee farmers was found to be 57 years and 74.3% of them were married. The findings further revealed that, the average coffee farm size was 1.15 acres and Standard deviation of 1.05. On the influence of gender, age, marital status and area under coffee on coffee production, the findings revealed gender, age and marital status has no effect on coffee production (P>0.05), while area under coffee has an influence on coffee production (P=0.023) Agricultural extension practitioners need to advice and encourage the youth and female to take part in coffee farming and encourage the elderly farmers to mentor the youth and women to take charge of coffee farming.