Smallholders’ market outlet choice decision: the case of bamboo producer farmers in Sidama Regional State, Ethiopia

Smallholder farmers in developing countries face many challenges regarding selecting appropriate market outlets. Market outlet choice is one of the most important farm household decisions to sell their produce and has a great impact on household income. In the Sidama regional state, bamboo producer farmers encounter challenges in selecting the appropriate market outlets. This study aims to identify the factors that influence the choice of market outlets among bamboo producer farmers in the Sidama regional state. A multi-stage sampling technique was employed to gather data from 193 bamboo-producing farmers. The collected data was then analyzed using a multivariate probit model to determine the factors that affect the selection of market outlets among bamboo producers. The findings indicate that among the surveyed respondents, 30.57% of bamboo farmers utilized farm gates as one of their alternative market outlets, while 55.96% sold their produce at local retailer markets, and 43.52% sold to district town market outlets. The results of the model also demonstrate that factors such as land size, frequency of extension contact, quantity supplied, and distance to market had a significant negative impact on the choice of farm-gate market outlets for producers. On the other hand, access to market information had a positive influence. Age of the household head, frequency of extension contact, quantity supplied, access to market information, and distance to market positively influenced the selection of local retailer market outlet. For the district town market outlet, land size and quantity supplied had positively influenced the choice of the outlet. Therefore, this implies that the need to improve access to market information, increase the level of production through training and awareness creation with increasing frequency of extension contact, and investments in transportation facilities are vital areas of intervention that would assist smallholder farmers in choosing the more rewarding market outlet.