A farm typology approach for targeted policy responses: The case of pastoral and agro-pastoral households in West Pokot County, Kenya

Most agricultural and food policies often overlook diversity of farming households, resulting in generalized and ineffective interventions. Recognizing changing and diverse characteristics of farm types is therefore critical. Using data from 502 households in West Pokot County, Kenya, we employ principal component and cluster analyses to create farm typologies to guide targeted policy interventions. Our results show five distinct groups of farm types based on their livelihood orientations: “wealthy and livestock-oriented” who thrive on livestock production, “more diversified smallholdings”, which demonstrate a trend toward non-farm livelihood sources, “less diversified mixed farmers” who rely solely on farming, “young, single and literate owned farms” demonstrating emerging leadership structure in pastoral communities, and “female-headed or less wealthy farm households” demonstrating low incomes, which suggest vulnerability. We compare these cluster-based market participation levels and food security indicators. We recommend farm-type-specific interventions and targeted strategies suited for specific needs of each farm type.