Farmers Market Participation Decision and Intensity of Participation in Butter and Cheese Marketing: The Case of Loma Woreda, Dawuro Zone Southern Ethiopia

This study was conducted with the main objective of; identify determinants of farmers’ market participation and level of participation in the study area. About 138 smallholder butter and cheese producers were selected randomly from six Kebele administrations proportionally. Both qualitative and quantitative types of data were used. Primary data was collected by using both close ended and open ended (semi- structured) questionnaire and personal interview, focus group discussion and key informant interview was used to collect the data. Heckman two stage models were used to analyze the data. The result of probit model indicated that farmers’ market participation on butter and cheese is significantly affected by gender, quantity of milk yield produced per day, family size, access to extension service, types of dairy cows’ breed owned by households and access to credit. While farmers’ participation decision on volume of milk value addition is significantly affected by gender, family size, education level of household, distance nearest to market, farmers membership in cooperatives, types of breed owned by household, access to extension service, access to credit, quantity of milk produced per day and consumers’ quality preference on value added dairy products. In general, policy initiatives aiming at increasing farmers’ access to dairy technologies, improving market information, road, access extension service, access to credit and cooperative development are recommended to step up the development of dairy sector particularly butter and cheese value chain in the study area. Keywords: Mills Ratio, Heckman two stages, Probit, Value Chain Analysis DOI: 10.7176/JMCR/54-02 Publication date:March 31st 201