Abstract:

As a vegetable crop, grain amaranth plays an important role in improving household
nutritional and economic status. Grain amaranth is still a new crop in Uganda’s
farming system, after being introduced by VEDCO in 2005 to curb malnutrition in
Kamuli district. Production and consumption of the crop is still limited mainly due to
lack of market, this has limited the purpose of production to domestic consumption
with no incentive of producing a marketable surplus. A cross sectional study was
conducted in Kamuli district to assess the determinants of small holder participation
in grain amaranth marketing. A total of 150 grain amaranth farmers obtained through
a multistage sampling technique, constituted the study sample. Findings revealed that
grain amaranth production and marketing in Kamuli district is dominated by male
headed households with land sizes allocated to grain amaranth production averaging
0.08 hectares.
The decision to participate in grain amaranth marketing was positively influenced by;
Gender of household head, Education levels of the household head. Grain amaranth
yield, grain amaranth selling price, membership in a farmer group while farm size
decreased the likelihood of selling grain amaranth. The results further reveal that the
education status of the household head and yield positively influenced households to
sell more grain amaranth with farmers who had participated more in field days as a
promotion activity marketing less grain amaranth
Yield improvements are critical if increased market participation is to be realized.
Therefore, research efforts should be directed towards generation and dissemination
of grain amaranth varieties that are superior in production, consumption and nutrition
attributes in order to stimulate massive production of the crop that will lead to higher
production surpluses being realized.