Abstract
This paper sorts out the most important factors influencing crop market participation of smallholder farmers in the highlands of Eastern Ethiopia. The study used primary data collected from 385 smallholder farmers during the year 2015. Heckman two-stage and Tobit models were employed for the analyses. Heckman model of first-stage results indicated that householdsâ decision to participate in crop output markets were influenced by factors such as sex of household head, farming experience, livestock holding, cultivated land size, off/non-farm income, fertilizer used, on-farm income, market distance, and crop diversification. Moreover, the second-stage results revealed that farm householdsâ intensity of crop output market participation was influenced by different factors such as dependency ratio, cultivated land size, education status, chemical fertilizer, and distance to market. The Tobit model result also indicated that the extent of farm householdâs participation in annual crop fertilizer market as buyer is influenced by the amount of cultivated land, land allocated to khat crop, off/ non-farm income (log), amount of manure used and distance to the main road. From policy perspective, we recommend that strategies aimed at improving commercial behaviour of smallholder farmers in the study area should be directed in addressing the determining factors of both crop input and output market participation.
Highlights
One of the policies of the European Union is the language policy which “is based on respect for linguistic diversity in all Member States and on the creation of an intercultural dialogue throughout the EU
The companies place emphasis on foreign language skills of their employees at the very beginning of the recruitment process because potential employees had to write their CVs in a foreign language and subsequently the shortlisted candidates were interviewed in a foreign language as well
According to the ELAN study undertaken by the European Commission (2006), the main languages used by European small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and large multinational companies are English and German, but on the other hand, the companies value the knowledge of other global languages such as Spanish, Chinese, Arabic or Portuguese
Summary
One of the policies of the European Union is the language policy which “is based on respect for linguistic diversity in all Member States and on the creation of an intercultural dialogue throughout the EU. Foreign language competence is regarded as one of the basic skills that all EU citizens need to acquire in order to improve their educational and employment opportunities. European institutions have initiated a few surveys, projects and studies investigating the linkage between language skills of small, medium sized and large enterprises and their business performance. The main objective of this study was to analyse the impact of language skills of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) on their business performance as well as to compare the language skills of SMEs with those used by multinational companies. The subjects of the ELAN study were 2000 SMEs from European states and large multinational companies. [...] 11% of respondents (195 SMEs) lost a contract as a result of lack of language skills. At least 10 businesses had lost contracts worth over €1 million” (European Commission, 2006)
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