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Marketing Constraints among Smallholder Farmers in South Africa: An Overview of Potato Market Outlets in Lusikisiki Township

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Submitted:

12 March 2020

Posted:

15 March 2020

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Abstract
Recent studies of the difficulties faced by smallholder farmers in many developing countries have echoed their disconnection with formal markets. These limitations have been attributed to a number of factors including stringent quality and volume requirements, among others. While smallholder farmers seek access to formal markets, the existing alternatives through which they sell their produce remain obscure. Using an interview of market outlets and selected smallholder farmers in the area, the study applied a crop marketing index to examine the outlets currently used by farmers and the volume of potatoes sold in each. Findings indicate that smallholder farmers on average sold sixty-eight percent of their produce. The outlet mostly used by farmers was street vendors because the large supermarkets sold potatoes supplied from external sources. It would be helpful for smallholder farmers to aggregate their produce through producer and marketing cooperatives, to better engage with these formal market outlets.
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Subject: Business, Economics and Management  -   Marketing
Copyright: This open access article is published under a Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license, which permit the free download, distribution, and reuse, provided that the author and preprint are cited in any reuse.
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