Browsing by Author "Kisenge, Kajiru"

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    An analysis of market information services efficacy in maize production and marketing sub-sector: the case of Kongwa district, Dodoma region.
    (Sokoine University of Agriculture, 2007) Kisenge, Kajiru
    The study assessed the relevance of the current agricultural market information available to farmers for purpose of increasing their efficiency and effectiveness in agricultural commodity market exchange, and establishes farmers’ willingness and ability to access better information from a mix of alternative sources. Specifically the study objectives were: (i) to asses the type of market information needed by farmers (ii) to identify sources of information used by farmers, (iii) to asses the type and frequency of delivering the preferred market information, (iv) to establish farmer’s willingness to pay for market information. A simple random sampling technique was employed to select 280 farmers. Qualitative analyses performed included computation of frequencies and cross tabulation. Quantitative analyses involved logistic regression. The study found that, 90.4% of households have access to information on where to sell and market selling prices than other types of information such as weather, credit, sources of inputs, and sources of agricultural equipment's. Friends and neighbors, radio, local financial institutions were found to be the most important sources of information for farmers. Despite the fact that farmers have full knowledge of prices, the majority of farmers 91.5%, sell their maize immediately after harvestings when prices are lowest. Regression results show that education of the respondent and farm size owned by the respondents had significant and positive influence on Willingness-to-Pay (p< 0.01) for information. While age and amount of money the farmer is willing to pay has a negative sign and insignificant in its relationship with Willingness-to-Pay for market information. Based on the study findings, it is recommended that market information access will be improved by localization of market information, improving means of delivering market information, promoting market information needs and improving institutional and organizational arrangements.