Farmers’ Market Outlet Preference for Irrigation Agricultural Products: Survey Result at Lume District of East Shoa; Ethiopia

Abstract

The study was conducted to assess market outlet preference for irrigated agricultural products in Central rift valley of Ethiopia. To this end, a field survey was conducted at Lume district of East Shewa zone from January to March 2015. Multistage sampling method was used to collect primary data from 165 households who are potentially rich sources of information on market outlets for irrigated products at district level. Additional data were collected through group discussions and key informant interview. Descriptive statistics and multinomial logistic regression model were employed to analysis the collected data and to identify the major factors that affect market outlet preference of farmers for irrigation products. The results of the study revealed that, consumers, retailers, brokers and whole sellers were the main market outlets identified for irrigation products in the study area. About 61% of respondents are the whole sellers and 15% used brokers to vend their irrigation products. Low price at peak supply periods, lack of marketing chain, information gap and distance from production area to local market are the major market problems explored for irrigation products. The econometric result showed that female headed households used to sell their irrigation products to simply available market outlets like retailers, consumers and brokers. Credit access had significant negative impact on the choice of farmers to sell to farm gate consumers as compared to the whole sellers. On contrary, market information access had positive impact on the preference of farmers to sell their irrigation products to consumers, retailers and brokers as compared to sell the whole sellers. Using the above results, capacitating female headed households and accessing credit to the farmers are important to increase intensive utilization of irrigation lands and products.

Keywords: Farmers, irrigation, irrigated products, logistic regression, market outlet