Factors influencing market participation decision and extent of participation of haricot bean farmers in Meskan District, Ethiopia

In the last few years, the international and domestic demand for haricot bean has increased. Despite the increased in volume of production in the country farmers still experience marketing challenges resulting into low incomes. The main purpose of this paper was to examine market participation of smallholder haricot bean producers in Meskan district, Ethiopia. Multi stage sampling technique was used to draw data from 133 smallholder farmers. The results from the Heckman two stage model revealed that the value of haricot bean produced, access to market information, farm size, education level, access to credit, membership to an organization and distance to the nearest market significantly affected market participation decision of haricot bean producers. Among the significant variables which affect market participation decision, membership to an organization and distance to market showed negative effect while all the rest showed a positive effect. The extent of market participation among haricot bean producers was significantly affected by farm size, value of haricot bean produced, access to input supply and access to credit.