Browsing by Author "Mathenge, Mary"

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Determinants of market outlet choices among cattle farmers and implications for fostering participation in rewarding livestock markets in rural Tanzania
(Springer Nature, 2026-03-17) Shashi, Njile; Bett, Hillary; Mathenge, Mary
Agricultural markets play a crucial role in enhancing smallholder farmers’ participation in markets. Nevertheless, there is a scarcity of studies on market outlet choices among smallholder cattle farmers, particularly in Africa where markets are fragmented and weakly integrated. Subsequently, there is a limited understanding of the drivers influencing the choices of market outlets and implications for fostering beef farmers’ market participation and socio-economic transformation. This study intends to fill this gap by examining the factors determining market outlet decisions among beef farmers in Monduli and Longido districts, Tanzania. Multistage sampling method was employed to identify beef farmers in the selected rural areas. A semi-structured questionnaire was used to solicit data from 400 smallholder cattle farmers selected through a simple random sampling. Analysis of the collected data involved estimation of descriptive statistics and econometric analysis. The multivariate probit regression showed that, age and extension services positively and significantly influenced market outlet choices (p < 0.01). Contrariwise, sex, group membership, distance to the nearest main road, tropical livestock unit (TLU), off-farm income and shock occurrences negatively and significantly influenced market outlet decisions. The findings evince that, agricultural extension services and distance to roads are imperative in influencing smallholder farmers’ market outlet choices. The study asserts the need to bridge extension services and rural infrastructure to enhance beef farmers’ participation in profitable livestock market outlets.
Drivers of smallholders’ cattle commercialisation in rural Tanzania and implications for leveraging opportunities in the beef sector
(Discover Food, 2025-11-13) Shashi, Njile; Kiplangat Bett, Hillary; Mathenge, Mary
The linkage between agricultural commercialisation and improvements in household welfare has received a significant attention in literature. Despite the growing interest, livestock commercialisation particularly beef cattle which is among the principal sources of meat protein in Tanzania is inadequately elucidated. Subsequently, there is a paucity of empirical evidence on the drivers of commercialisation and policy implications to guide beef cattle sector in Tanzania. This study was delved to fill this research gap by determining the factors influencing beef cattle commercialisation among smallholder farmers. Cross-sectional survey was used whereby a multistage sampling method was used to obtain 400 randomly selected farmers in Arusha region. A semi-structured questionnaire was used to solicit information from the smallholder farmers between September and October 2024. Fractional probit model was used to determine the factors influencing beef cattle commercialisation among the farmers. The results showed that, age of the farmer and access to extension services are important determinants of beef commercialisation (α = 0.01). Moreover, the results revealed that, farmers’ sex, membership in farmer’s group, distance to nearest main road, tropical livestock unit (TLU), earning of off farm income and shock occurrence statistically significant influenced commercialisation (α = 0.01, α = 0.05 and α = 0.1). This study highlights the role of agricultural extension services to smallholder farmers’ commercialisation decision. It therefore recommends a provision of extension services to reach the remotely cattle farmers to boost commercialisation. Similarly, the study asserts the need for interventions to ease the enabling infrastructure such as rural roads and gender sensitive programs for cattle producers to enhance commercialisation for harnessing emerging opportunities in beef sector.