Assessment of the Performance of the Goat Marketing System in Afar Region, Ethiopia

Abstract

This study attempted to assess the performance of the goat‟s marketing system in the Afar region, Ethiopia. The specific objectives of the study are: examining the nature and types of market tiers, market participants and market channels; evaluating the availability of goat‟s marketplace facilities and services; evaluating access to market, market information, credit services and transportation; analyzing the market structure and conduct in relation to marketing performance; and examining the pricing practices in goat‟s marketing system of the region. For the purpose of this study the primary data was collected from sample traders with the help of semi-structured questionnaire, group discussion with market participants and interview with officials and physical observation of market outlets by researcher. Also the secondary data that used for this study, collected through inspection of reports of some identified federal and regional government institutions and websites. From the region six well-known goat's markets were considered on the bases of the volume of animal transacted. For data collection purpose 120 traders were selected through convenience sampling on the bases of their experience in goats trading business. The collected data analyzedthrough descriptive statistics with the help of SPSS v-16 and discussed using mean, frequency, percentage, and market concentration ratio. Finding of the study indicates that, the performance of the goat‟s marketing system in Afar region is poor characterized by poor market place services, inadequate market information, poor access to markets and transportation, poor credit services. Moreover, most of the markets in the region have a weakly oligopolistic market structure by large traders. As a result, the largest market shares go away with these groups plus they also have the power to influence price of goats in the sample market place. In the region most goats' transactions done based on „eyeball‟ estimation, therefore, traders estimate the price of goats by looking physical condition of goats visually and by touching different body parts of goats by hand. Determination of price on the basis of live weight is not common in the sample markets. Therefore, to improve goats marketing system in Afar region, market place facilities with their respective services, market information should be provided. And also, access to credit, formal market centres and transportation should be created. Key words: Goats, Marketing, and Traders