Empirical Investigation of Pastoralists’ Behaviour towards Participation in the Cattle Market in Omo Valley of Southern Ethiopia

This research was undertaken in the pastoral areas of southern Ethiopia with the objective of assessing determinants of cattle commercial off-take along with the cultural values. The required data was generated from both primary and secondary sources. The primary data was generated through a formal survey using pretested questionnaire from 160 randomly selected pastoralists and through group and key informant discussion with cattle traders. In order to identify factors determining the pastoralists’ behaviour towards participation in cattle markets and the net commercial position (selling, autarky, and buying) of households, multinomial logit model was used. Age of the household head, education level, income from livestock products, off-take for social purposes, the number of regular clients and having access to market information have a significant effect on the likelihood of choosing the selling position. Cattle market price, and mode of payment/credit have significant effect on the probability of choosing the buying position while off-take for social purposes and number of regular clients have significant effect on probability of choosing the autarky position. Therefore policies that would improve the net commercial off-take by establishing markets and production and/or marketing facilities, and creating awareness regarding some traditional practices such as raiding and sacrificing would alleviate the problem.