A Study on Maize Marketing Performance of Damot Multipurpose Farmers’ Cooperatives Union and its Affiliates, Amhara Region, Ethiopia

Cooperatives are organizations whose primary functions are to market commodities for members. They are responsible for getting the preeminent prices paid to the members for their commodities by negotiating with wholesalers and processors for best prices. However, farmers in developing countries were not getting the right share of prices because of excessive marketing costs and margins and the cooperatives were not in a position to deliver the services expected from them by increasing the members’ participation and volume of sales. The study, therefore, aims at to analyze the maize marketing performance of DMFCU and its affiliates. The study was conducted by collecting data from primary and secondary sources. From the members of DMFCU, six primary cooperatives and 120 individuals were randomly selected in proportion to the number of membership on the basis of woreda and primary cooperatives level respectively. In this study, both descriptive statistics and econometric analysis were employed for analytical purpose. Of the total individual respondents, 57.5% were participants and 42.5% were nonparticipants in cooperatives maize marketing in 2006/07. The descriptive statistics indicated that the marketing share of cooperatives out of the total marketable surplus was only 5%.The total gross marketing margin of maize was 39.22%. From the total gross marketing margin, the primary cooperatives and the union share was 4.20% and 10.01% respectively. The share of the producers’ of the amount spent by the consumers was about 60.78%. The results of statistical tests between the participant and non-participant farmers in the cooperatives maize marketing indicated that family size, production of maize, household’s annual income, use of fertilizer, patronage refund, cooperatives leadership, availability of other services and misappropriations of cooperatives property were significantly affected the participation.