Do Coffee Farmers Benefit in Food Security from Participating in Coffee Cooperatives? Evidence from Southwest Ethiopia Coffee Cooperatives

Background: Most coffee in Ethiopia is produced by smallholder farmers who face a daily struggle to get sufficient income but also to feed their families. At the same time, many smallholder coffee producers are members of cooperatives. Yet, literature has paid little attention to the effect of cooperatives on combating food insecurity among cash crop producers including coffee farmers. Objective: The objective of the study was to investigate how coffee cooperative membership may affect food security among coffee farm households in Southwest Ethiopia. Methods: The study used cross-sectional household data on income, expenditure on food, staple food production (maize and teff), and utilization of improved inputs (fertilizer and improved seed) collected from 256 randomly selected farm households (132 cooperative members and 124 non-members) and applied an inverse probability weighting (IPW) estimation to assess the impact of cooperative membership on food security. Results: The result revealed that cooperative membership has a positive and significant effect on staple food production (maize and teff) and facilitated technological transformation via increased utilization of fertilizer and improved seeds. Nonetheless, the effect on food expenditure and income could not be confirmed. Conclusion: Findings suggest a trade-off between coffee marketing and input supply functions of the cooperatives, impairing their true food security impact from the pooled income and production effect

Do coffee cooperatives benefit farmers? : an exploration of heterogeneous impact of coffee cooperative membership in Southwest Ethiopia

Smallholder farmers' participation in agricultural cooperatives is often promoted as a promising strategy for overcoming market imperfections and to increase farmers' productivity and income. In recognition of this potential, in recent years, Ethiopia has shown renewed interest in promoting cooperatives. However, there is lack of empirical evidence of the impact that cooperatives have on farmers' performance in Ethiopia. Using a matching technique, we evaluate the impact of coffee cooperatives on the performance of their member households in terms of income and coffee production. We use data from coffee farmers in south-west Ethiopia. The overall results suggest that members of cooperatives are not faring much better than non-members. The treatment effects we measured were not statistically significant from zero. Yet, the aggregate figures mask differences between cooperatives and amongst individual cooperative members. Average treatment effects on members differ between cooperatives, in general older members, those who have benefitted from more education and those with larger coffee plantations seem to benefit more from membership. Our analysis sheds light on the heterogeneity in the impact that membership of a cooperative can have: this differs by cooperative and by members within cooperatives, a finding that has important policy implications

Determinants of Dairy Farmers’ Market Participation in the Major Dairy Producing Towns of Jimma Zone of Southwest Ethiopia

The study was initiated with the objectives of analyzing factors affecting dairy farmers’ market participation in major milk producing towns of southwest Ethiopia. Milk and butter were the two most important dairy products marketed in the areas. Data came from 238 dairy producing households, 17 traders, and 50 consumers. Heckman two stages procedures were used to analyze factors affecting milk market participation and level of participation in the study area. The first step of the Heckman two stages procedures results showed that dairy household milk market entry decision was strongly and significantly affected by  family size,  number of cross breed and local breed  milking cows owned, access to credit and distance from milk market center. In addition, the second stage estimation result revealed that marketable milk volume was found to be strongly and significantly affected by the number of cross breed and local breed milking cows owned, family size, and monthly non-dairy income source of sampled dairy household.  69.7% were market participants as they were found to sell raw milk at the time of the survey, while the rest (30.3%) did not sell at the time of survey. Keywords: Milk, market participation, Heckman model, southwest Ethiopi

Analysis of marketed surplus of coffee by smallholder farmers in Jimma zone, Ethiopia

The generation of marketed surplus and its transfer from agricultural sector to non-agricultural sector is crucial for achievement of self-sustaining economic growth. In order to expand the leading role agriculture plays in economic growth and poverty reduction, smallholder farmers need to improve their marketed surplus. A higher marketed surplus would help farmers to participate in a high value markets by increasing their level of income. The objective of this paper is to estimate the marketed surplus of coffee by smallholders and to identify its underlying determinants. A stratified multi-stage random sampling procedure was hired and a total of 152 smallholder farmers from six kebeles were randomly and proportionately sampled to collect both secondary and primary sources. The result of econometric analysis from OLS marketed surplus model revealed that sex, coffee farming experience, access to credit, perception of farmers towards the adequacy of extension service on marketing, perception of farmers towards current price of coffee, membership to coffee cooperative, and non- and/or off-farm income significantly affected marketed surplus of coffee. The findings imply that offering farmers a fair price, providing adequate credit and extension services, improving marketing infrastructures, building farmers’ experience, encouraging farmer’s business diversification besides farming, improving farmer’s linkage with cooperatives, and paying attention to female households are needed to increase coffee marketed surplus. Key words: - Marketed surplus, Coffee, Multiple linear regressio

Assessment of Banana Production and Marketing in Ethiopia

The study was conducted to assess and identify the factors that influence the production and marketing performance of banana in Ethiopia. Multi-stage purposive and random sampling techniques were alternatively employed at different stages to collect the necessary primary data. Secondary data was also collected from written documents and focus group discussions (stakeholders) across the survey areas. The data for smallholder banana growers were collected from 3 major banana producing zones, 5 districts and 10 farmer villages. The data for large-scale commercial banana producers was collected from a wider part of the country covering 14 farms from 3 regional states. The marketing data encompassed almost all the major market outlets in Ethiopia. As such a total of 150 small-scale and 14 large-scale growers, 59 wholesalers/ripeners, 53 retailers and 53 consumers were interviewed using structured questionnaires. Comparative econometrics and descriptive results as well as multiple linear regression analysis using a Cobb-Douglass production function has been employed to determine and quantify the impact of the explanatory variables or factors affecting the yield performance of banana in the study areas. Results indicate that different household and farm characteristic

Do coffee cooperatives benefit farmers? An exploration of heterogeneous impact of coffee cooperative membership in Southwest Ethiopia

Smallholder farmers’ participation in agricultural cooperatives is often promoted as a promising strategy for overcoming market imperfections and to increase farmers’ productivity and income. In recognition of this potential, in recent years, Ethiopia has shown renewed interest in promoting cooperatives. However, there is lack of empirical evidence of the impact that cooperatives have on farmers’ performance in Ethiopia. Using a matching technique, we evaluate the impact of coffee cooperatives on the performance of their member households in terms of income and coffee production. We use data from coffee farmers in south-west Ethiopia. The overall results suggest that members of cooperatives are not faring much better than non-members. The treatment effects we measured were not statistically significant from zero. Yet, the aggregate figures mask differences between cooperatives and amongst individual cooperative members. Average treatment effects on members differ between cooperatives, in general older members, those who have benefitted from more education and those with larger coffee plantations seem to benefit more from membership. Our analysis sheds light on the heterogeneity in the impact that membership of a cooperative can have: this differs by cooperative and by members within cooperatives, a finding that has important policy implications

Determinants of Participation Decision and Levels of Participation in Small Ruminants Market

Small ruminants are mainly kept for immediate cash sources and they are also sources of foreign currency. Nonetheless, there is a lack of well-functioning marketing systems. In addition, the different live animals supplied to the market by pastoralists and farmers do not meet the quality attributes required by diverse markets. Randomly 1120 farmers were selected and using double hurdle model, the article identified determinants of participation decision and level of participation in small ruminants market in 7 districts of five regional states of Ethiopia. Out of the total interviewed households, 77.3% and 22.7% were participated and not-participated to the small ruminants market, respectively. The first-hurdle model estimation results for participation decision indicate that Region, access to credit, distance to the market, distance to veterinary service, extension contact and access to market information were found that significantly influenced small ruminants’ market participation The results also show that most of the factors determining decision of participation also determined the level of small ruminants market participation. Therefore, government or any other bodies who are concerned on small ruminants product should help producers on Improving the accessibility of market places; need to facilitate a long term relationship with different actors in order to get reasonable price for the producers