Assessment of innovative market access options for banana value chain in Uganda
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Date
2015-10
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Abstract
Smallholder banana farmers depend almost entirely on fresh banana for their livelihoods in Uganda.
Similarly, other banana value chain (BVC) actors specialize in the trade of the fresh fruit for income and
employment. Therefore, improving the efficiency of market access options in Uganda’s banana subsector
is one way that banana value chain actors can benefit through the sale of their banana products.
In order to achieve this, the actors need to be innovative; departing from dependence on the same
product and traditional markets/approaches that limit available benefits. This paper is aimed at
identifying innovative market access options among the banana value chain actors in Uganda as a
basis for projecting the potential. Cross-sectional research design incorporating 240 value chain actors
was employed for the study. The major innovative market access options assessed during the study
were collective marketing, contract farming, mobile phone platforms, value addition options and
supermarkets. The study discovered that innovative market access options such as farmer
associations/collective marketing groups, use of mobile phone tools and value addition among banana
actors were vital in improving market access but were underutilized. As such, there is need to develop a
specific banana value chain development strategic framework in order to tap up innovations among the
value chain actors and promote their diffusion across key banana growing districts in Uganda
Description
Journal of Development and Agricultural Economics 2015, Vol. 7(10): pp. 323-331
Keywords
Market access options, Banana, Value chain, Innovation