Assessment of Metal Silo Business Up-Take among the CIMMYT-Trained Artisans in Kenya

This paper establishes level of up-take of the business opportunities provided by the metal silos technology among the artisans who were trained on how to make metal silos. It also assesses the factors that determine the practice of the metal silo business among the trained artisans. A third of the artisans takes orders directly from individual farmers, grain traders, institutions, etc and makes metal silos at their own workshops, a third does not engage in metal silos business at all while a third is normally hired by the first category. The likelihood to make metal silos either at own workshop or as a hired artisan reduces with age while the same increases with years of experience in technical work. The likelihood to make silos at own workshops also increases with ownership of a workshop before training, running a workshop as the primary occupation and metal work as the main professional training for the artisans.