A Cost-benefit Analysis of Substituting Bamboo for Tobacco: A Case Study of Smallholder Tobacco Farmers in South Nyanza, Kenya

This study examined the economic andfinancial b enefits and costs of farmingbambo oasacropsubstituteoftobaccoinfour(4)districtsinSouth Nyanza,Kenya.TheWorldHealthOrganizationFramework Conventionon Tobacco Control was developed in response to the globalization of the tobaccoepidemic andArticle17 requiressignatoriestoprovidesupport for economically viable al ternative activities to tobacco farming. Farmers, who dependontobaccoproductionfortheirlivelihood,willthereforeneed other alternative crops to produce. Amultistageandstratifiedrandom samplingwasusedtoselect210tobacco farmers. One administrative location with the highest location of tobacco farmerswasselectedfromeachofthedistrictthroughstratification where we usedaproportionalsamplewhichwasselectedrandomlyforthestudy. Afterwards, a survey was carried out using a standard questionnaire with bothstructuredandunstructuredquestionsthatwasrelevantforthestudy. Using the primary data, the study applied the framework of cost benefit analysis to analyze the cost and benefits of both tobacco and bamboo . Resultsofthebasescenarioshowedthatbamboofarmingisfinanciallyand economically beneficial to tobacco farming since the incremental benefits are positive. A sensitivity analysis showed no change in the sign of the net incrementalbenefit.Results indicatetheNetPresentValueattheendof the projectwillbe KShs 155,444.51 for tobacco farmers and KShs 663,272.10 forbamboo farmers. Bamboo farming therefore,ifwell managed can meetthe objective ofalternative livelihood to tobacco farming.