Economic Factors Influencing Adoption of Modern Beekeeping Technologies Among Women Beekeeping Projects in Kajiado County- Kenya

Modern technologies in beekeeping have advanced over the years. However, satisfying the basic needs of the rural people by improving their standards of living through adoption of modern technologies in beekeeping is still a challenge despite advances in the technologies. This is due to the relative slow adoption rates of the new technologies. This study was designed to find out how the economic factors influence the adoption of modern beekeeping technologies using the case of the women groups in Kajiado County in Kenya. The specific objectives of the study were to determine how product market prices, substitute commodity prices, consumer incomes, beekeeper’s income, and Government policies, influence adoption of the beekeeping technologies. The target population for this study was 720 beekeepers and six key informants selected through simple random sampling procedures from 72 women groups in Kajiado County. A sample size of 116 respondents was drawn. The researchers used personal interviews, questionnaires, observation guides and key informant interview guides to collect data from the targeted respondents. The collected data was cleaned, coded and entered into SPSS (version 21) software for analysis. The researchers found that economic factors influenced the adoption of beekeeping technologies. Among the economic factors identified were product prices, substitute product prices, consumer income, beekeeper’s income and Government policies. It was therefore recommended that these economic factors had vital influence on adoption of modern technologies. Hence the implementers of new technologies need to consider and take into account these factors whenever new technologies are being introduced to similar communities.