Honey Marketing Performance: The Case of Anna Sorra District of Gujii Zone, Oromiya National Regional State, Ethiopia

Beekeeping is an appropriate and well-accepted farming activity that directly and indirectly contributes to smallholder income generation in Anna Sorra district. However, there are a number of problems in honey and beeswax value chains that can be faced from production up to consumption. Thus, this research attempted to analyze the honey marketing performance of Anna Sorra district of Oromya National Regional State, Ethiopia. Cross-sectional data were collected from 99 farmers, 21 traders and 4 consumers. Both descriptive statistics and econometric model had been used to analyses the date. Analysis of marketing margins revealed that retailers received the highest (20%/10%) marketing margin, rural collectors took (10.5%/10%) for unprocessed and semi-processed honey whereas processors and wholesalers received the least marketing margins which is 5% and 5.9% respectively for unprocessed and semi processed honey in study area. The two-stage least square regression model results showed that seven variables which are quantity of honey produced, family size, type of beehive used, beekeeping experience, distance to nearest market, frequency of extension contact and sex of the house hold head significantly affected the volume of honey supplied to the market. Policy implications drawn from the study findings include the need to improve the beekeepers knowledge, encouraging adult education, improving production and volume of sales of honey and expanding accessibility of market infrastructure.