Consumers’ Perceptions towards Goat’s Milk: Exploring the Attitude Amongst Consumers and Its Implication for a Dairy Goat Breeding Programme in Siaya County, Kenya

Abstract

Although most of the milk consumed in Kenya comes from cows, goat's milk is becoming increasingly popular despite the often negative public perception as evidenced in the literature. Studies on consumer willingness to pay for goat’s milk have revealed that consumers were more willing to pay a premium price to obtain the milk. However, there is inadequate information on consumers’ attitudes towards consumption of goat’s milk, factors associated with this attitude and their implication on a dairy goat breeding programme. By assessing consumer perception, the current study examined consumers’ attitude towards goat’s milk in Siaya County of Kenya, the factors that influenced the decision, and their implications on a dairy goat breeding programme. A snowballing sampling technique was used to select a sample of 84 survey respondents in the County. Primary data was collected using interviews with the help of sets of structured and semi-structured questionnaires. A 5-point Likert continuum scale was used to analyze and rank perceptions of consumers, with one (1) as strongly disagreed and five (5) as strongly agreed. The results showed that consumers’ perception towards goat’s milk was positive. There was a relationship between perception towards goat’s milk and socio-economic factors like age and education. From the findings, it was also evident that the price of goat’s milk and its relative scarcity were barriers to its consumption. This implies that a dairy goat breeding programme is likely to be successful in the study area and in areas with similar production circumstances. Policy interventions are, therefore, recommended to educate consumers on quality attributes of goat’s milk and provision of high value genotypes of dairy goats to farmers in the County to increase the volume of milk supply from the goats and, due to economies of scale, subsequently lower the cost of production and stabilize the market price of goat’s milk.

Keywords: Attitude, Consumer perception, Goat’s milk, Breeding programme, Kenya