ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Sustain. Food Syst.
Sec. Agricultural and Food Economics
Volume 9 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2025.1569193
Does entrepreneurial orientation influence the adoption intensity of climate-smart dairy strategies? Evidence from smallholder farmers in Central Kenya
Provisionally accepted
- 1Egerton University, Njoro, Kenya
- 2Egerton University, Nakuru, Kenya
- 3Pavia University, Italy, Italy
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The dairy value chain in Kenya is important for income generation and food security, yet smallholder farmers face increasing challenges due to climate change. Climate-smart dairy strategies (CSDS), including improved breeds, feed improvement, health, and manure management, offer promising pathways to enhance productivity and environmental sustainability. While studies have focused on socio-economic factors influencing the adoption of these strategies, the role of entrepreneurial orientation remains underexplored. Entrepreneurial orientation is important in decision-making and enabling agripreneurs to capitalize on growth opportunities. This study addresses this gap by assessing the influence of five dimensions of entrepreneurial orientation, namely risk-taking, innovativeness, proactiveness, autonomy, and competitive aggressiveness, on the adoption intensity of CSDS among 385 smallholder dairy farmers in Central Kenya. Using a cross-sectional research design and a generalised ordered logit model, the results reveal that autonomy and risk-taking significantly increase the likelihood of adopting CSDS (P<0.01) and that various control variables shape them. Autonomy enables farmers to make independent strategic choices, while risk-taking allows them to experiment with CSDS despite uncertainty. Policy interventions should strengthen farmers' entrepreneurial capacity by promoting training and extension programs that build confidence, decision-making autonomy, and willingness to adopt CSDS. These findings offer clear and actionable recommendations to boost CSDS uptake and support sustainable agriculture in Kenya and other Sub-Saharan African countries.
Keywords: Entrepreneurial orientation, Climate-smart strategies, Dairy, Smallholder farmer, Kenya
Received: 14 Feb 2025; Accepted: 20 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Chelang'a, Mathenge, Okello and Sassi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Naomi Chelang'a, naomichebi09@gmail.com
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