Abstract
At the attainment of Zimbabwe’s independence, government of Zimbabwe established the smallholder dairy development programme to encourage smallholder farmers to participate in formal milk markets. Although now more than three decades since the government established this programme, smallholder contribution to the national formal market remains low at 5%. This study was undertaken to determine factors affecting milk market participation and volume of sales to milk collection centres of the smallholder dairy value chain. Four smallholder dairy schemes were purposively selected on the basis of whether the scheme participated in the semi-formal or formal dairy value chain. A total of 185 farmers were then selected through simple random sampling and interviewed using a pretested structured questionnaire. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and Heckman two-stage selection econometric models. Results show that resources (represented by dairy cows, household size), knowledge (educational level, access to information and extension), experience (household head age) and agro-ecological region significantly determined farmers’ participation in milk markets. The study also shows the determinants of milk sales volumes to be resources (number of dairy cows and landholding size); market access (distance to milk collection centre); ambition of the farmer (age); and natural climatic conditions (agro-ecological region). Government policy interventions therefore need to be targeted at increasing the number of dairy cows, taking into account landholding and market access, targeting educated, young farmers located in agro-ecological regions I and II, providing them with adequate, appropriate information and extension packages in order to enhance milk market participation and volume of sales.
Highlights
At the attainment of Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980, large scale commercial farmers supplied all the milk that entered the formal markets
These were total number of dairy cows owned by the household (TotCows), educational level of the head of household (Educhh), age of the head of household (Agehh), size of household, access to information (AccInfo), access to extension services (AccExt), and the agro-ecological location of the smallholder dairy schemes of the household (NRDSch)
Results of the first stage Heckman two-step model show that out of the 14 explanatory variables, seven were found to determine the probability of milk market participation. These are total number of dairy cows owned by the household, educational level of the head of household, age of the household head, household size, access to information and extension services, and agro-ecological region location of the smallholder dairy scheme of the household
Summary
At the attainment of Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980, large scale commercial farmers supplied all the milk that entered the formal markets. The government of Zimbabwe established the smallholder dairy development programme in 1983 to encourage smallholder farmers to participate in formal milk markets (Chamboko & Mwakiwa, 2016). By 2016, the smallholder dairy development programme was credited with facilitating the establishment of about 20 smallholder dairy schemes located in various parts of the country. These schemes have provided an avenue through which smallholder farmers participate in dairy production and marketing. Smallholder dairy schemes that process milk at the milk collection centre participate in the semi-formal value chain, whereby the milk and milk products jas.ccsenet.org
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