In Ethiopia tef is the most important crop in terms of area coverage and among the producers. Though, the crop marketing outlets choosing recommendation has not been given attention that has potential for crop production enhancing for marketable. The objective of this paper was to examine factors affecting market outlet choices among smallholder tef producers in western Ethiopia. The quantitative data was collected from tef producers. Purposive and a multi-stage sampling technique were used to determine sample households. Descriptive statistics and multivariate probit model were employed to analyze the collected data. The result shows that there are five alternative main market outlets available for the tef producers that were wholesalers, collectors, cooperatives, consumers, and retailers who were affected by household’s demographic such as age, gender, education level, and household size), socio-economic, (land allocated for tef, a variety used, livestock holding, and off/non-farm activities), institutional (credit, extension, and market information), and market (volume of tef produced, own transport facility, and nearest market) related factors. Based on the findings it is recommended that farmers choosing appropriate marketing outlets, should consider farmers’ skill and knowledge, additional sources of income, women empowering women farmers and information on marketing are need attention by respective sectors.
Keywords: Ethiopia, multivariate probit, outlet choice, tef and western Oromia