| dc.description.abstract | The performance of cattle marketing system in South Sudan is not well understood, though cattle
are one of the significant agricultural commodities on the market in South Sudan, and also
.
despite the great social and economic importance of cattle for South Sudan's rural and urban
populations. There are uncertainties over whether the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA)
that was signed in 2005 has had a significant effect on the cattle market performance. There was
thus a need to assess the trends in the cattle market performance in South Sudan during and after
the civil conflict in the country by comparing the trends in the marketing margins for different
marketing agents and by assessing the effect of marketing costs on marketing margins for the
different market actors before and after the CPA in 2005. In this regard, the study used the Fixed
Effects model utilizing Panel Data and analytical approaches based on the farm value,
wholesale-to-retail margins and farm-to-retail price spread.
The data were collected through personal interviews of the farmers, cattle traders and butchers
who constituted a total of 140 respondents of which 129 respondents were located in Juba and
Terekeka counties. The two counties were selected for the survey because they are able to
represent the three levels of the cattle markets, namely rural or primary, secondary and terminal
markets. The hypotheses of the study were that the trends in the marketing margins for the cattle
market chain actors are not different and marketing margins do not depend on the marketing
costs for the cattle marketing chain actors in South Sudan.
The study found that the cattle traders handled the highest average number of cattle (491.3)
heads and the age groups of the three market agents involved in the cattle trade were at the
average ages ranging between about 33 and 35 years old. There are high illiteracy rates among the cattle marketing actors represented by low average levels of education ranging from about
1.15 to 9.28 years of school attendance. A.verage price of different types of cattle has increased
by almost three fold after the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). The prices are influenced
by factors such as marketing costs, infrastructure, distance to the market and insecurity, good
health and color of cattle.
The study finds that the marketing marg'ins for the farmers fluctuated from about 44 to 75
percent of the level in the base year 2005 before the CPA and from about 112 to 147 percent of
the level in the base year 2005 after the CPA. In case of the cattle traders, the study found that
their marketing margins ranged between about 32 and 74 percent of the level in the base year
2005 before the CPA and from about 109 to 138 percent of the level in the base year 2005 after
the CPA. This implies that the farmers were getting better marketing margins than the cattle
traders before and after the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in 2005, and this could be
due to the high marketing and transactions costs incurred by the traders compared to the
marketing costs incurred by the farmers, because cattle traders paid additional costs as they took
their cattle from the rural to the terminal markets in the urban areas.
At the retail level, the study found that the marketing margms for the butchers were
systematically decreasing before and after the CPA, ranging between about 58 and 65 percent of
the level in the base year 2005 before the CPA and from about 93 to 99 percent of the level in the
base year 2005 after the peace accord. This could be due to high marketing costs and fixed
marketing margins following regulatory conditions in the urban areas.
Regression analysis results indicate that- marketing margins are wholly determined by the
marketing costs. The study found that government intervention and regulatory environment in terms of the taxes after the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) to have had a negative
influence on the marketing margins, especially at the wholesale sector. Therefore, there is need
to review government intervention and see how appropriate policies can be developed to
improve cattle trade in South Sudan.
The poor marketing infrastructure reduces the benefits accrued to the cattle marketing chain
actors. Therefore, the government should facilitate trade by investing in different aspects of the
infrastructure, namely roads, water points, slaughtering houses and communications. In addition,
the extension services are important at this stage of the development in the area, as the majority ,
of the market chain agents have low levels of education, especially among the farmers.
The study found that one of the causes of the poor veterinary care is lack of credit to the farmers
and also some cattle traders. | en |
