Drivers of smallholders’ cattle commercialisation in rural Tanzania and implications for leveraging opportunities in the beef sector
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Date
2025-11-13
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Discover Food
Abstract
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.
Sustainable Development Goals
1: No Poverty
2: Zero Hunger
8: Decent Work and Economic Growth
Keywords
Beef cattle, Commercialisation, Fractional probit, Offtake rates, Smallholder farmers