Market structure and price controller of beef cattle in North Sulawesi

The purpose of this study is to analyze the market structure and controller of beef cattle prices in North Sulawesi. The location of the research was purposively determined, namely Manado City, Tomohon City, and Regency of Minahasa as the trade center of beef cattle in North Sulawesi. Furthermore, respondents were determined by the snowball sampling, started by obtaining information about breeders of beef cattle as business consumers and, also, the end consumers through the Department of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry in the three research areas. Through the snowball technique, 120 respondents consisted of 10 end-consumers/business consumers of beef cattle, 10 intermediate traders, and 100 breeders of beef cattle. The data, then, were analyzed using the concentration ratio model and Hirscman-Herfindahl Index to measure the market structure and asymmetric price transmission analysis to detect the controllers of beef cattle prices. The result shows that the structure of the beef cattle market in North Sulawesi led to an oligopoly with the highest concentration; while, the controllers of beef cattle prices were the end-consumer as business consumers of live beef cattle