Global livestock collaborative research support proGram

Efforts to develop market opportunities are a key element of the current USAID agricultural strategy. In this study, we illustrate how milk marketing in two pastoral towns in northern Kenya is influenced by patterns in intra-household decision making. In this pastoral study area, men make migration decisions and women market milk. Since milk markets are in town and households change location frequently, the husband’s decision about where to settle the household has obvious implications for the distance his wife will have to walk to the milk market in town. We find that all else equal, husbands do not locate the household to facilitate milk sales—if anything they are locating the household to make it harder for wives to market milk. This study illustrates how efforts to link producers to markets may need to be designed with an understanding of the intra-household decision making process. Do Pastoral Husbands and Wives in Northern Kenya View Milk Markets Differently?