Factors Affecting Smallholder Farmers Participations in Cluster Crop Production: Evidence from Selected Districts of West Shewa Zone, Oromia National Regional State, Ethiopia

Abstract

| The modern conception of agribusiness development clusters emerged in the 1960s around traditional export commodities such as coffee, cotton and cocoa. Thus, this study was initiated to describe socio-economic factors of cluster crop producers, challenges of cluster crop production, and examine factors affecting smallholder farmers’ participation decision in cluster crop production. By employing two-stage sampling techniques, data was collected from 160 farm households of selected Western Shewa zone districts, namely Ejersa-Lafo, and Bako-Tibe. Data was emanated from primary sources, which administrated by semi-structured questionnaire using personnel interview. On top of this, the focus group discussion was carried out on particular topics to supplement primary data source discussions. Both descriptive statistics and a probit regression model was employed for analysis. The descriptive statistics revealed that 127 sampled farmers participated in cluster crop production, while the remaining 33 were not. On the other hand, the result of probit model regression had shown that household-related factors such as being a male, economic dependency ratio, farmer experience, marketable surplus supply, and seed multiplication objectives were positively affecting the probability of participation decision while wealth variable like owning a large number of livestock was negatively affecting participation decision. Further, institutional service factors like the acquisition of awareness and frequency of extension contact positively affecting participation decision; however, obtaining training had a negative effect. Generally, farm household’s internal factors and external factors affecting cluster crop production. Therefore, intensive support for program implementation can be expected from the government by augmentation of stakeholder coordination to aspire to agribusiness growth.