Determinants of dairy cooperative membership among smallholder farmers in North-Western Ethiopia

Figures & data

Figure 1. Location map of the study area.

Table 1. Summary of explanatory variables for econometric analysis

Variable name	Operational definition of the variable	Type of a variable	Exp. sign
Age	Age of household head in years of living	Continues	(±)
Sex	Sex of the household head; 0 = female and 1= male	Dummy	(±)
Education	Years of schooling the household head has attended	Continuous	(+)
Family size	Total family size measured in man equivalent	Continuous	(±)
Landholding	Total amount of land owned by the household in Ha	Continuous	(±)
Experience in dairy farming	Number of years since dairy farm was started	Continuous	(+)
Off/non-farm activity participation	Whether the household has participated in off/non-farm activity or not; 0= non-participant 1= participant	Dummy	(+)
Credit service	Whether the household gets credit service or not; 0 not used credit service 1= used credit service	Dummy	(+)
Total livestock holding	Total number of livestock owned by the household measured in TLU	Continuous	(+)
Extension contact	Household’s frequency of contact with extension workers	Continuous	(+)
Training participation	Whether the household head has access to training or not; 0 not participated in training 1= participated in training	Dummy	(+)
Market information access	Whether the household head gets market information or not; 0 did not get market information 1= got market information.	Dummy	(+)
Distance to the nearest market	Time required (measured in minutes) to reach the nearest market.	Continuous	(±)
Distance to cooperative	Time required (measured in minute) to reach the Dairy Cooperative	Continuous	(-)
Number of crossbreed cows Owned	The number of crossbreed cows the household owned.	Continuous	(+)
Social responsibility	Whether the household head has a social position in the community or not	Dummy	(+)
Neighbor’s membership	Weather the household has dairy cooperative member neighbor farmer or not	Dummy	(+)

Table 2. Descriptive statistics of sample farmers for continuous variables

Variable	Non-members (n=143)		Members (n=123)		Total (n=266)		t-value
	Mean	SD	Mean	SD	Mean	SD
Age	43.85	9.23	47.39	9.55	45.48	9.53	−3.097**
Education	2.22	3.02	3.38	3.34	2.76	3.22	− 2.971***
family size (man equivalent)	2.94	1.08	3.20	1.33	3.06	1.21	−1.731*
Dairy farm experience	12.07	9.51	18.70	9.34	15.14	9.98	−5.718***
Landholding	1.64	0.91	1.61	0.94	1.62	0.92	0.257
Livestock holding (TLU)	6.39	2.83	8.00	2.87	7.13	2.95	−4.601***
Number of crossbreed cow	0.36	0.52	1.37	1.00	0.83	0.93	−10.573***
Extension contacts	2.52	2.71	5.12	5.31	3.73	4.31	−5.128***
Distance to market	106.12	16.98	116.91	29.39	111.11	24.11	−3.727***
Distance to milk cooperative	48.74	20.64	26.21	19.13	38.32	22.88	9.180***

***, **, and * = indicate 1, 5, and 10 percent level of significance, respectively.

Source: own household survey, 2021.

Table 3. Descriptive statistics of sample respondents for dummy variables

Variables	Response	Non-Members		Members		Total		(χ2) test
		N	%	N	%	N	%
Sex	1 = Male	129	52.65	116	47.35	245	92.11	1.528 (0.216)
	0 =Female	14	66.67	7	33.33	21	7.89
Social responsibility	1 = Yes	45	46.87	51	53.13	96	36.09	2.8639* (0.091)
	0 = No	98	57.65	72	42.35	170	63.91
Credit use	1 = Yes	30	46.88	34	53.12	64	24.06	1.6068 (0.205)
	0 = No	113	55.94	89	44.06	202	75.94
Off/non-farm participation	1 = Yes	84	53.5	73	46.5	157	59.02	0.0101 (0.920)
	0 = No	59	54.13	50	45.87	109	40.98
Training participation	1 = Yes	31	22.63	106	77.37	137	51.50	110.14***(0.000)
	0 = No	112	86.82	17	13.18	129	48.50
Market information	1 = Yes	46	28.57	115	71.43	161	60.53	104.09*** (0.000)
	0 = No	97	92.38	8	7.62	105	39.47
Neighbors’ membership	1 = Yes	77	42.78	103	57.22	180	67.67	27.009*** (0.000)
	0 = No	66	76.74	20	23.26	86	32.33

***, and * indicate 1 and 10 percent significance level, respectively.

Source: Owen household survey, 2021.

Table 4. Estimation results of probit model for dairy cooperative membership

Variable	Coefficient	Standard errors	t	P-value	Marginal effect
Sex	−0.2925	0.5891	−0.50	0.619	−0.0275
Age	0.0086	0.0302	0.29	0.774	0.0008
Education	0.0911	0.0574	1.59	0.112	0.0086
Landholding size	−1.0744***	0.2965	−3.62	0.000	−0.1011
Dairy farm experience	0.1450***	0.0350	4.15	0.000	0.0136
Extension contacts	−0.0171	0.0464	−0.37	0.713	−0.0016
Social responsibility	0.5921	0.3653	1.62	0.105	0.0557
Credit access	−0.6299	0.4225	−1.49	0.136	−0.0592
Labor (man equivalent)	0.3759**	0.1911	1.97	0.049	0.0353
Distance to market	0.0046	0.0070	0.66	0.512	0.0004
Distance to dairy cooperative	−0.0376***	0.0118	−3.19	0.001	−0.0035
Livestock holding (TLU)	0.1878**	0.0852	2.20	0.027	0.0177
Off/non-farm participation	0.5170	0.3605	1.43	0.152	0.0486
Training access	1.8920***	0.4797	3.94	0.000	0.1780
Market information access	1.6402***	0.4415	3.71	0.000	0.1543
Crossbreed cow owned	1.0870***	0.3064	3.55	0.000	0.1022
Neighbor membership	0.8117**	0.3789	2.14	0.032	0.0763
Cons	−6.6848***	1.6800	−3.98	0.000
Log likelihood = −44.556 Number of obs. = 266			LR chi^2(17) = 278.14 Prob >chi^2 = 0.0000 Pseudo R^2 = 0.7574

***, **, and * indicate 1, 5, and 10 percent significance level, respectively.

Source: own household survey, 2021.