Transaction Costs and Cattle Farmers' Choice of Marketing Channels in North-Central Namibia

T. Shiimi, Pieter R. Taljaard and Henry Jordaan

No 96641, 2010 AAAE Third Conference/AEASA 48th Conference, September 19-23, 2010, Cape Town, South Africa from African Association of Agricultural Economists (AAAE)

Abstract: About 70% of the Namibian population depends on agricultural activities for their livelihood. Moreover, agriculture remains an important sector to Namibia because its national economy is widely dependent on agricultural production. Cattle producers in the Northern Communal Areas (NCAs) have an option to market their cattle via the formal or informal markets. Efforts have been made to encourage producers to market their cattle through the formal market; however, limited improvement has been observed. In this study a number of factors have been analysed to determine its influences on cattle marketing decisions. Factors influencing the marketing decision of whether or not to sell through the formal market are analysed using the Probit model. Factors influencing the proportion of cattle sold through the formal market on condition that a producer uses the formal markets to sell cattle are analysed with the Truncated model. Testing the Tobit model against the alternative of a two-part model is done using Cragg’s model. Empirical results revealed that problems with transport to MeatCo, improved productivity, accessibility to market-related information and access to new information technology, are some factors significantly affecting the decision of whether or not to sell through the formal market. Payment arrangements by MeatCo, animal handling, accessibility to new information technology, age of respondents and lack of access to marketing expertise, are some factors influencing the proportional number of cattle sold through the formal market. The results suggest that substantially more information is obtained by modelling cattle marketing behaviour as a two decision-making instead of a single decision-making framework.

Keywords: Livestock; Production/Industries (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30
Date: 2010-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr, nep-agr and nep-iue
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:aaae10:96641

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.96641

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