Smallholder Farmers’ Decision to Participate in Vegetable Marketing and the Volume of Sales in West Shewa Zone of Oromia National Regional State, Ethiopia

This study examines vegetable producers’ market participation and sales volume using cross-sectional data obtained from 385 randomly and proportionately sampled households from West Shewa zone, Oromia region of Ethiopia. Heckman two-step procedure was used to analyse the determinants of participation in vegetables markets and volume of sales during the study period. Probit model shows that education level, distance to nearest market, access to irrigation, use of pesticide and participation in any civic organization significantly affect market participation decision. Further, results from ordinary least squares regression show that sex of household head, land size, distance to farmer training centre, access to irrigation, use of pesticide and participation in civic organization significantly affect the level of market participation of the farm households in vegetable markets. The findings imply that support for female households, improving adult based education, participation in civic organization, infrastructure, access to irrigation and improved inputs are a means to increase vegetable production market participation and sales volume in West Shewa, Ethiopia