“Determinants of Smallholder Teff Farmers’ Market Participation

Abstract

Increasing market participation for smallholder farmers has a big potential to uplift living standards of poor household through increasing production and consumption. Although, smallholder farming made 95% of total crop production in Ethiopia, they are exposed to a marketing bottleneck that hinders benefits from their produce. The objective of this study was to identify determinants of smallholder teff farmer decision to participate in output market and level of marketed output. The study used data on 190 respondents that are collected through structured questioner from Gena-Bossa districts in Dawro Zone. The descriptive statistics and Heckman two stage econometric methods were employed to analyze the data. Out of sampled household, 75% participated in teff output market, while the remaining 25% not supplied teff output in survey time. The farming activity were the main source of income and livelihood in study area. Among interviewed, about 21.58% have off-farm activity option but the remaining 78.42% of respondent have no other alternative even in dry season, in which no agricultural bustle takes place. About 89.5% of teff farmers’ have access to extension services while only 30% obtain credit; 24.74% have access to price information and 28.42% of household have membership to producer group. The significance of coefficient of inverse Mill’s ratio ( ) indicates the presence of self-selection bias and the effectiveness of applying Heckman two stage model. The results of study show that the smallholder decision to participate in output market were positively influenced by size of land holding, availability of family labor force, education status of household head, accessibility of credit service and access to market price information. On the other hand, size of family member, sex of house hold head being female and distance to market place discourage probability of teff farmer market participation decision. Moreover, the second stage estimation reveals that, the education status of house hold head, size of farm land, amount of teff crop produced, accessibility of market information, the size of family labor force and being member to farm cooperative increase the quantity of marketable output, whereas, large number of family size decline the level of teff crops marketed. The policy that assist poor farmers in obtaining market skills; create affordable credit service; strengthen community based producer groups and capacitating the females socially and economically in the community believed to minimize the problems encountering small farmers in a way to market their crop.