Abstract:
Though Elu Gelan district have potential for dairy production in Ethiopia, the majority of
small dairy farmers could not get benefit from this sector due to the low market participation
problem. Hence, the main objective of the study is to assess determinants of dairy product
marketing among smallholder farm households in the case of Elu Gelan district. The study
used both primary and secondary data sources. Cross-sectional survey research design and
multi stage sampling techniques was used to draw 256 respondents for data collection using
structured questionnaires in this study. Data collected was analyzed by descriptive and logit
model using STATA version 15. The results of descriptive statistics revealed that 34.77% of
the total sampled households were dairy market participants while the remaining 65.23%
were non-participants. The model result shows that Among 20 explanatory variables, which
were hypothesized to determined households‟ dairy market participation, 10 of them were
the significant variables included in the model such as Milk in Littre consume, Distance to
the nearest dairy market and Milk yield variation were negatively and significantly affect
households dairy market participate whereas Butter in kilograms Produced, Milk in Littre
Produced, Access to Credit, Access to Dairy Extension Services, Dairy Experience of
farming, Access to Dairy Market information and Milking cows owned were positively and
significantly affect households dairy market participate in the study. Based on the finding, it
is recommended that there has to be policies and strategies that increases the provision of
productive dairy animals for the farm household to increase milk and butter production;
strategies that increase human capital of farm households through training on production
and marketing of dairy products, and access to transportation through establishing dairy
product marketing cooperatives that serve at local level; and there has to be a fertile tri-party
ground among community leaders, religious institutions and public sectors so as to increase
the participation of farm household in dairy products marketing.
