Assessment of the Challenges of Livestock Market Linkage between Afar Livestock Cooperatives and Export Abattoirs to Enhance Competitiveness for Greater Benefit

Abstract

In the Afar region of Ethiopia livestock subsector contributed the greatest share to the agricultural regional real gross domestic product. So, improving the competitiveness of meat export chain is considered to be crucial. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the challenges of livestock market linkage between Afar livestock cooperatives and export abattoirs to enhance competitiveness for the greater benefit. Both primary and secondary data were used for the analysis. The primarily data were collected through structured questionnaire prepared for livestock cooperatives, export abattoirs, government official and traders; whereas, the secondary data obtained from reports published and unpublished documents. Cross- sectional research design was conducted on 25 livestock cooperatives officials, 39 export abattoirs managers, 13 governmental and non-governmental officials and 15 traders and collectors. Purposive sample selection method was employed to select the targeted samples. Jointly, in order to achieve the objectives of this study and thereby to give answer for its problems, quantitative research approach was used by the researcher. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data. For this purpose SPSS software was used. So, the study found that, quality, market information and supply have a significant impact on competitiveness. However, efficiency market facilities, government structure, access to credit service are not determinants of competitiveness. That is if the cooperatives want to escalate up the meat export industry, they should work more on those three factors. In other word those three factors can make a better livestock market linkage between livestock cooperatives and export abattoir. But, currently the overall findings of this study indicated that the presence of big gapes on those areas.