Browsing by Author "Kangile, Rajabu Joseph"

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The determinants of farmers’ choice of markets for Staple food commodities in Dodoma and Morogoro, Tanzania
(MDPI, 2020) Kangile, Rajabu Joseph; Mgeni, Charles Peter; Mpenda, Zena Theopist; Sieber, Stefan
Institutional and policy-induced factors affect farmers’ decisions on the choice of the market to sell their staple foods. This results in low motivation to participate in the production and agricultural commodities’ commercialization. This study determines specific institutional and policy-induced factors affecting the farmers’ decisions regarding the staple food market choice in Tanzania. The study uses household survey data collected from 820 farmers raising staple food crops (maize, rice, sorghum, and millet) randomly selected from the Dodoma and Morogoro regions, Tanzania. The index method, descriptive statistics, and choice model (multinomial logit model) are used for data analysis. Qualitative policy analysis is used for analyzing policy-induced factors. Findings show a low level of integration of farmers into staple food markets, with female-headed households facing more hurdles in accessing markets than male-headed households. Age, formal training, the value of agricultural production, membership in organizations, access to credit, contractual arrangements, and distance to markets are significant factors driving farmers to choose a particular market to sell their produces. Restriction of selling and use of staple food commodities, instability of food policy administration, and procedural operation obstacles are found to be key policy-induced factors affecting the marketing of staple food commodities in Tanzania. The scale of production, as depicted by the value of production, and supply contract arrangement with buyers are important factors to ensure that farming households excel in lucrative markets through increased economies of scale and the ability to reach critical volumes for supplying to various markets. Supporting market linkage and infrastructure, as well as enforcing transparent and non-restrictive food marketing policies, would help many farmers enter into contractual arrangements that increase market access and improve market choices.
Efficiency in production by smallholder rice farmers under cooperative irrigation schemes in Pwani and Morogoro regions, Tanzania
(Sokoine University of Agriculture, 2015) Kangile, Rajabu Joseph
Low price competitiveness of Tanzania produced rice driven by high production costs calls attention to developing ways of improving efficiency in production. This study was conducted to analyse production costs and factors influencing choice of inputs provider in smallholder irrigated rice production. Specifically, it focused on comparing costs of production, determining factors influencing smallholder irrigated rice farmers’ choice of inputs provider and analysing production cost efficiency. Data were collected from four cooperative irrigation schemes in Pwani and Morogoro regions involving 200 farmers. Production costs were quantified using enterprise budgeting technique and differences analysed using T-test. Factors influencing choice of inputs provider were determined using Logit model. Translog stochastic cost frontier was used for cost efficiency analysis. Study findings indicate that, costs of production stands at 315.47USD/MT. Farmers purchasing inputs through irrigation scheme cooperative had lower production costs than farmers purchasing from other input providers. Factors influencing choice of production inputs provider were distance from the cooperative to nearest town, membership in other organizations, extension services, input quality satisfaction and availability of cash and credit payment mode (p<0.05). Rice output and prices of labour, fertilizer and irrigation water significantly affected costs of production with unit cost of production being decreasing by increasing rice output (p<0.05). Inefficiency in production was significantly influenced by farming experience, planting methods, frequency of weeding, degree of specialization and source of purchased inputs and accounted 82.08% of variability in costs of production (p<0.05). The study concludes that, there is loss of efficiency in production due to high production costs attributed by rice output produced, input prices, source of purchased inputs and other agricultural practices. It is recommended to use labour saving technologies, purchasing inputs through irrigation scheme cooperative and gaining more economies of scale by increasing specialization.