Value chain analysis of Potato in Dedo district of Jimma zone, Ethiopia

Potato is number one non-grain food commodity of the world. Even though, Ethiopia has favorable ecology, the production of potato is characterized by poor seed quality, low skills of farmers, diseases, high post-harvest losses and poor organization along chain. The study is aimed to identify potato value chain actors and their roles and analyze marketing margins for actor. For this study 136 potato producers were randomly selected, 5wholesalers, 8collectors, 12 retailers and 6 small scale processors were purposively selected. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected from primary and secondary sources. Descriptive statistics was used to analyze data, chain mapping was implemented to identify actors and their supply linkage. Margin analysis was used to estimate value gained by each actors involved in potato value chain. The identified actors were input suppliers, producers, wholesalers, retailers, small scale processors and consumers. Supporting actors were office of agriculture, irrigation, micro finance, cooperatives, trade and market development, NGOs and bank. The margin analysis revealed that 65.01%, 12.29%, 9.78%, 8.27%, 3.27% share of margin goes to small scale potato processors, potato producers, retailers, wholesalers and collectors respectively. The major constraints were high price of seed, poor infrastructure, interferences of brokers, low storage facilities, weak linkage, disease and pests. The opportunities were suitable agro-ecology and government support. Strengthening the linkage among actors, providing training on storage construction and disease control, improving bargaining power of producers and initiate small scale processors were recommended to improve potato value chain.