Abstract:
Although Kyela District has high potential for rice production, which is done by almost every household, poverty is high as evidenced by 66% of households in the district being poor. The specific objectives of the study were to: assess rice marketing channels and the role of different marketing participants; analyze rice market structures; determine the performance of the rice marketing sub-system; compare well-being levels of rice farmers, traders and miller-traders; and find the likelihood of respondent households being grouped into the highest income quintile. A cross-sectional study design was employed, and data were collected between March and July 2010 from 234 households, including 160 rice farmers, 44 rice traders and 30 rice miller-traders. Five well-established informal rice marketing channels in which six marketing groups were participating were observed. Different actors and free entrance of different buyers and sellers to the market were also observed. Moderate levels of the Gini coefficients (0.35 for traders and 0.34 for miller-traders) were obtained. The main sources of marketing information were traders (70.2%), neighbours (15.5%), friends (9.9%), and media (4.4%). Profit margin was higher among traders than among miller-traders and farmers. Market efficiency was highest (20.1%) for traders and lowest (1.6%) for farmers. More than four-fifths (83.8%) of the farmers, 4.5% of the traders and 59.9% of the miller-traders were below the poverty line. The households’ income Gini coefficients were 0.468 and 0.425 for poor miller-traders and farmers, respectively. The Pa measure of poverty for traders was 0.016, unlike that for miller-traders, which was 0.188 and that for farmers, which was 0.327. The Pa ratios mean that the traders were the richest of the three groups, since the smaller the Pa ratio the richer the people. In order to reduce poverty more effectively in Kyela District through improved rice marketing performance, it is recommended that road infrastructures should be improved to reduce transport costs for all actors in the rice marketing chain. Further, it is suggested that all problems facing the farmers, traders and miller-traders should be addressed by the government and other stakeholders to make the rice business a more paying enterprise.
