Determinants

Abstract

"Regression model was used to analyse the volume of maize offered to the market for sale. The result of the Tobit model correctly predicted 67% of the observation with a significant chi square of 52.93 and it shows the overall significance of the model. All variables had positive coefficients significantly differ from zero except years of education, transaction cost, marital status and household size. This means that a unit increase in the quantity of these variables will increase the proportion of maize offered for sale by the respondents. The, result of the regression model also showed that R -Square and adjusted R-Square are respectively 5 % and 90% with a significant overall fit. Volume of maize sold by individual respondents was used as the dependent variable. Total maize produced (p<O.01), age (p<0.05), years of education (p<O.10), ownership of cultivating equipments (p<O.OI), access to non farm income (p<0.05), and belonging to farmers' association (p<0.0l ), means of information (p<0.1O), all had a significant and positive relationship with the volume of sales, this' suggests that an increase in any of these variables will lead to an increase in the volume of maize offered for sale while marital status (p<0.05), -and transportation cost (p<0.05), had a negative and significant relationship with the volume of maize sold and this is in line with the a priori expectation. The study recommends that effort should be made at establishing more points of sales in farming areas in order to lower transportatic Costs to promote market participation and youths should be encouraged to participate in agricultural production and consequently market participation so as to inject new blood into the system. "