Table 2 Descriptive statistics of bivariate probit analysis variables

Age of household head (years)

52 (23)

54 (17)

53 (23)

53 (18)

52 (25)

54 (22)

50 (27)

54 (21)

Household head’s education (0 = No education; 1 = primary level; 2 = secondary level; 3 = tertiary level)/fraction of households in each category

0

0.37

0.18

0.36

0.19

0.36

0.23

0.40

0.22

1

0.46

0.49

0.48

0.48

0.47

0.46

0.43

0.48

2

0.15

0.26

0.13

0.26

0.15

0.24

0.14

0.24

3

0.02

0.07

0.03

0.07

0.02

0.07

0.03

0.06

Household size (No. of people in a household)

4 (2)

4 (2)

4 (2)

4 (2)

5 (3)

5 (3)

5 (3)

5 (3)

Acres (size of cropped land in acres)

1.4 (1.6)

1.5 (1.9)

1.3 (1.6)

1.5 (1.9)

1.2 (1.4)

1.8 (3.8)

1.2 (1.3)

1.7 ( 3.7)

Male-headed households (Proportion of male-headed household)

0.73 (0.44)

0.84 (0.37)

0.73 (0.44)

0.84 (0.37)

0.70 (0.46)

0.79 (0.41)

0.66 (0.47)

0.80 (0.40)

Credit access (proportion of households that received credit)

0.26 (0.09)

0.27 ( 0.11)

0.27 (0.09)

0.26 (0.11)

0.26 (0.08)

0.27 (0.11)

0.27 (0.10)

0.26 (0.11)

Market distance (distance from household to input market in kilometres)

7.2 (8.2)

5.6 (6)

6.7 (7.8)

6.0 (6.5)

7.3 (8.4)

5.6 (5.9)

6.4 (7.8)

6.2 (6.6)

Soil water retention (ability of soils to retain water. Captured through GIS)

0.7 (0.46)

0.88 (0.32)

0.74 (0.44)

0.85 (0.36)

0.69 (0.46)

0.88 (0.33)

0.74 (0.44)

0.84 (0.36)

Expected yield (mean maize yield)

407 (159)

943 (392)

510 (310)

857 (413)

517 (135)

1,002 (390)

590 (250)

936 (405)

Yield variance (maize yield variability as predicted from the production function)

259,796 (308,208)

457,116 (723,916)

285,004 (488,765)

432,982 (652,834)

289,302 (309,176)

415,752.5 (572,709)

274,432 (302,657)

415,070 (560,788)

Downside risk (Skewness of the maize yield as predicted from the production function)

3.59D⁰⁸ (1.88D⁰⁹)

6.44D⁰⁸ (4.13D⁰⁹)

3.48D⁰⁸ (2.71D⁰⁹)

6.37D⁰⁸ (3.76D⁰⁹)

6.55D⁰⁸ (1.86D⁰⁹)

4.39D⁰⁸ (3.35D⁰⁹)

4.18D⁰⁸ (1.70D⁰⁹)

5.68D⁰⁸ (3.32D⁰⁹)

Wage rate (Daily wage rate of the farm labour in Kenya Shillings)

87 (40)

82 (32)

85 (41)

83 (32)

89 ( 37)

89 (29)

89 (36)

89 (30)

Number of observations