CONSTRAINTS OF CHEESE SMALL-SCALE PRODUCERS IN IMERETI REGION OF GEORGIA: MIDDLEMEN THE CAUSE ROOT OR NOT?

B.Sc. Pacifique Ingabire

Master's thesis

Abstract:

Small scale farmers rely on the local middlemen, due to their monopsony position to deliver products to the market. They are frequently portrayed in the literature as agents of exploitation of small farmers and source of failure of the free market assumptions. The aim of this study was to identify key constraints that limit farmers productivity and market access in cheese value chain, to assess the role of middlemen, if they contribute negatively or positively to farmers development and access to market and to assess how the horizontal integration of farmers in agricultural cooperative might contributed to the change of cheese supply chain and increased productivity. The study used quantitative and qualitative methods employing convergent parallel mixed method of research for different objectives, primary qualitative data were collected from small-scale cheese producers (n= 100), middlemen (n=5) and retailers (n=12) using semi-structured questionnaires, secondary resources were obtained from Association of Young Economists of Georgia in collaboration with Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague and People in Need, the analysis was done using descriptive statistics in Ms excel, bivariate correlation, Friedman rank test and ANOVA in SPSS 22.0. The study found that middlemen in Georgian cheese market have a minor role in limiting access to farmers and are not the cause root of market constraints; farmers have access to market and price information. However, we found out that the main constraints in cheese marketing is low quantity produced and low retail price that farmers receive. The study found that there is a promising increase in level of processing and quantity of products supplied, increased total added value of the supplied commodities, reduction of transaction costs, better access to markets, higher bargaining power on the domestic market, and even improved access to international markets for some products if farmers would join an agricultural cooperative.

Keywords

internal and international market, monopsony position, horizontal integration, value chain, agriculture cooperative

Language used: English

Date on which the thesis was submitted / produced: 22. 4. 2016

Thesis defence

• Supervisor: Ing. Jiří Hejkrlík, Ph.D.

Czech University of Life Sciences Prague

Faculty of Tropical AgriSciences

Master programme / field:
Tropical Agriculture / International Development and Agricultural Economics