Demographic and socio-economic factors affecting financial performance of agribusiness in Kalerwe market, Kawempe division

Abstract

The study aimed at examining the relationship between economic factors and the financial performance of agribusiness at Kalerwe market as the main objectives. other objectives examined included the relationship between demographic factors and the financial performance of agribusiness in the Kalerwe market. Social factors were also examined to find their influence on the performance of agribusinesses. The study used primary data collected from 76 respondents in Kalerwe market. A simple random sampling technique was used in the collection of the data. Findings revealed that 61.84% of the agribusinesses at Kalerwe market performed poorly and highest proportion of them were male (53.95%). The majorities (39.47%) were in the age group of 31-40 years and 30.26% of the respondents acquired primary education. A larger proportion of the participants (50.00%) employed between 1-3 workers, a larger proportion of the participants (38.16%) delt in the sale of durable agricultural products, a larger proportion of the participants (38.16%) had inadequate capital for running the business. Results indicated that gender (p=0.7638), products (p=0.1467), capital size (p=0.6419), age (p=0.5433) had an insignificant statistical association with financial performance of agribusinesses at Kalerwe market. And Furthermore, number of employees (p=0.0472), education level (p=0.0450) and marital status (p=0.0354) had a significant association with financial performance of agribusinesses at Kalerwe market. At the multivariate level, there was no significant statistical association between the education level, marital status and number of employees with financial performance of agribusinesses in kalerwe market and the model was fitted. In line established results, the study recommends; easing Accessibility to loanable funds from financial institutions both private and public at favorable interest rate as the majority of the participants were operating small and medium sized enterprises. The research further recommends government intervention in regulating in its policies of subsidizing small and medium enterprises that could boost financial stability of the existing firms.