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Abstract

Transaction cost economics posits that farmers opt to sell in a market that minimizes their costs of participation. Smallholder farmers in Nigeria face the choice of travelling to sell live chicken at the spot market or at the farm-gate. However, little is known of the factors that influence their choice. So far, studies on market choice overlook farmers lived experience in explaining their market decision. To investigate this gap in research, an explanatory sequential mixed methods design comprising a quantitative phase; followed by a qualitative phase is applied for the first time. We use a two-limit Tobit model to obtain quantitative results from a survey of 259 smallholder farmers in the first phase. Results show that: regular/repeat customers, bargaining power, access to extension services, access to credit, distance to the nearest township, stock size, bicycle ownership and price are factors that significantly influence the choice of selling at the farm-gate. In order to explore this finding in more depth, a qualitative phase was developed and 25 purposively selected respondents were interviewed. The overarching significance of this study is that by integrating quantitative and qualitative data substantially more information is obtainable than is usually obtainable from quantitative data alone.

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