Determinants Sorghum Market among Smallholder Farmers in Kafta Humera District Tigeray Ethiopia

Abstract

Markets are important for economic growth and development of a given country to ensure sustainable supply of food. Failure of market leads to failure of adoption of new technology which is necessary for increasing productivity. Sorghum has been considered as a strategic crop by the Ethiopian government aiming at enhancing food security and essential source of income for farmers as whole economic benefits to the country. Smallholder’s farmers producing about 95 percent of the national agricultural production increasing market participation among smallholder farmers have a big opportunity to boost their living standards. The objective of this study was analyzing factors determining smallholder sorghum farmer decision to participate in output market and level of marketed output smallholder farmers in Kafta-Humera district of Tigeray Ethiopia. A two stage sampling technique was used to select 289 sample farmers who were interviewed using a semi- structured questionnaire to obtain data pertaining to sorghum production during the year 2016/2017. Descriptive and Tobit regression analyses were used to determine the key factors that influence household participation in the market in terms of volumes of product sales.  The study identified that quantity of sorghum supplied to the market was positively affected by credit, extension contact, training, sorghum farm size, current price of sorghum and education, while family size and lagged price of sesame negatively affected. These indicate that there is a room to increase in supply and intensity of sorghum in the study area. Therefore, government authorities and other concerned bodies should take into consideration the mentioned demographic, socioeconomic and institutional factors to increase supply of sorghum to the market in study area.