Assessing market participation among sorghum producers in Aukot sub-county, Soroti district

Abstract

Smallholder farmers constitute the largest share of farm households in Uganda and many of them are poor. A way out of poverty for them is to address market related problems. In this paper, the market options available to these farmers, as well as market related factors that are problematic were investigated. Primary data were collected from 120 sorghum farmers in Aukot Sub-county, Soroti District. All the sampled farmers produce and sell sorghum (n=120) in their households, The average landholder allocated to sorghum production was noted to be small and varied between 1 to 2 acres as shown in Table 2. The majority of the farmers (n=115) reported that the main reason for which they grow sorghum is for both food and income for the household (95.8%). The major variety of sorghum grown by the farmers was SESO3 (65.0%), following NAROSORG2 (18.3%), NAROSORG3 (12.5%). The main reason the farmers fronted for growing the specified sorghum varieties was that of being high yielding (65.0%) and early maturing (27.5%). Farmers considered mainly the height and maturity period (52.5%), and the head color, size and shape (47.5%) to identify the sorghum variety for growing. The main cropping systems in the sorghum cultivation were intercropping 58.3% (n=70) and crop rotation 41.7% (n=50). On how they rate the fertility of their land, the majority of the farmers (75.8%) reported that their land was fertile. The study identified four markets options and the most prioritized was the local market. The study results show that, market price, farm size, education and total sorghum produced, road condition, primary occupation and transaction costs significantly affect famers’ market participation. Policy interventions that seek to improve these factors are very important to market participation.