Evaluation of cloud marketing as an avenue for sale of chicken by smallholder farmers in Kampala City

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to evaluate cloud marketing as an avenue for sale of chicken from smallholder farms in Kampala City, Uganda. Four consistent meat producing chicken farmers were randomly selected from 13 parishes, purposively selected from each division, creating a sample size of 260 respondents. With an interviewer administered questionnaire, data was collected on production systems and challenges faced by farmers in marketing of their produce. Farmers’ monthly production, sales and revenue were recorded as baseline information. A digital marketing platform without usage-based pricing was created using Facebook and WhatsApp then offered as a service to bridge the gap between small holder farmers and their customers. The product considered for this study was chicken meat, availed to customers at standard market price. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze data on small holder farmer demographics, adoption of the cloud marketing platform and challenges faced during marketing of produce; Repeated measures ANOVA was used to determine significant differences in small holder production, sales and revenue. The challenges included: few numbers of customers and low price at which chicken were sold. High cost of data and airtime were the greatest problems when farmers attempted marketing through social media. Although the adoption of the platform was generally low among farmers and there were no differences in birds produced (p=0.7), significant differences were observed in birds sold (p=0.032), selling price (p<0.001) and revenue generated (p<0.001) through farmers` use of the platform.