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Sugarcane out-growers’ views on contract farming services quality in Kilombero valley, Tanzania

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dc.contributor.author Machimu, Gervas M.
dc.date.accessioned 2023-05-08T09:39:23Z
dc.date.available 2023-05-08T09:39:23Z
dc.date.issued 2020
dc.identifier.citation Machimu, G. M. (2020). Sugarcane outgrowers’ views on contract farming services quality in Kilombero valley, Tanzania, East African Journal of Social and Applied Sciences, 2(2), 22-36. en_US
dc.identifier.issn 2714-2051
dc.identifier.issn 0856-9681
dc.identifier.uri http://repository.mocu.ac.tz/xmlui/handle/123456789/346
dc.description Paper type: Research paper Type of Review: Peer Review en_US
dc.description.abstract Contract farming (CF) promises many benefits for sugarcane outgrowers in many cases. However, studies debate on whether sugarcane smallholder farmers get quality services from CF relations. As a response to the debates, this paper provides a systematic analysis of two issues critical to the performance of sugarcane contract farming in Kilombero Valley: the extent to which farmers are satisfied with the services received through farmers’ associations and the satisfaction status of farmers on contract farming services the sugarcane buyer offers. The paper also determines the associations between farmers’ views on satisfaction with CF services and their household characteristics. The paper adopted a cross-sectional study design in which 300 outgrower farmers were interviewed. Data were analysed using IBM Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) Statistics, and Microsoft Excel. The paper used SERVQUAL model, adapted to the sugarcane contract farming context. Through the model, five dimensions (tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy) were tested to find gaps that exist among some smallholder farmers regarding perceived and expected quality in the CF services coordinated by farmers’ associations. The results demonstrate that empathy was the most deficient dimension of contract farming services quality. Also, there were high deficiencies on quality control, price setting as well as weighing sugarcane consignments at the Mills’ gates. Cross tabulation and chi-square test revealed that there was a significant relationship between satisfaction with the timing of payment for the sugarcane they sold and household size. It is recommended that empathy should be tackled first by the farmers’ associations before other dimensions. Both farmers’ associations and the buyer should be active initiators of cane supply agreements en_US
dc.language.iso en en_US
dc.publisher EAJST en_US
dc.relation.ispartofseries Vol.2;No.2
dc.subject Smallholder en_US
dc.subject contract farming en_US
dc.subject service quality en_US
dc.subject Kilombero Valley en_US
dc.title Sugarcane out-growers’ views on contract farming services quality in Kilombero valley, Tanzania en_US
dc.type Article en_US


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