The determinants of smallholder coffee producers’ market outlet choice decision in Debub ari district of South Omo Zone, SNNPR, Ethiopia

This study mainly aimed at analyzing coffee market chain and the determinants of coffee market outlet choice decision of smallholder coffee producers in the Debub Ari District. The descriptive statistics and econometric models were used to analyze the data. Multivariate probit model was used to identify factors affecting market outlet choices of the smallholder coffee producers. Both primary and secondary data were collected from the study area. The multi-stage sampling techniques have been employed for this study. A total of 194 coffee producer household heads have been randomly selected and interviewed with the help of pre-tested structured questionnaire. The focus group discussion and key informants interviews were conducted to supplement the formal data. The probability of choosing collector, wholesalers, retailer, processor, consumer's outlets is 67.1%, 66.4%, 36.9%, 71.6% and 15.3%, respectively. The joint probabilities of households to jointly choose the four market outlets was 0.031% which is greater than the likely of not choosing all market outlets which is 0.003%. Access to credit negatively influenced retailer, processor and consumer market outlet choice, distance to the nearest market negatively influenced processor market outlet choices, market information, off-farm participation positively influenced retailer and consumer market outlets choices. Therefore, the intervention is needed to improve coffee marketing chain through promoting cooperatives, infrastructural development and timely market information for efficient marketing system in the study area.