An Assessment of Factors Influencing the Market Performance of Coffee Farmers’ Cooperatives In Melka Balo Woreda: The Case of Kurtu Cooperatives Society, Ethiopia

Abstract

Productivity of smallholder agriculture lingers at subsistence level, primarily due to the unreliable supply and unaffordable prices of farm inputs, and poor rural marketing infrastructure. Cooperatives are indispensable institutions for addressing such a structural problem. In Ethiopia, inefficiencies in the coffee markets primarily hurts the income of coffee farmers and discourages their production and marketing of coffee, and secondly it also significantly decreases the country’s foreign exchange that should have been obtained from coffee production and trading. This suggests that it is very crucial to study and monitor the performance of coffee markets in all coffee producing areas of the country and improve their efficiency. The study was initiated with the objectives of investigate major marketing problems of coffee cooperatives of farmers, to assess the major constrains that exist in the channel members and to recommend the better placement of coffee product as well as the positioning of Kurtu Cooperative Society. The research design is descriptive in nature and the data for this study were collected both from primary and secondary sources. Primary data was collected using two types of questionnaire, one for the coffee producers (farmers) who are members of the cooperatives and the other for wholesalers and retailers. According to the results of the study, sample cooperatives were characterized by lack of marketing facilities, shortage of land, poor road infrastructural problems, prevalence of diseases that influence farmer’s market performances and also traders business were lack of road, lack of transportation, and also the constraints indicated by wholesalers and retailers with respect to coffee marketing include delay in unloading coffee at ECX which creates additional cost and the most important marketing problems reported by the traders include too much competition with unlicensed traders and the overall storage of coffee supply.

Keywords: Agriculture marketing, Coffee cooperatives, Kurtu Cooperative Society, Market performance