Analysis of Logistics Chain of Fertilizer from Port and Improved Seed from Production Area to Farmers
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Date
2020-09-03
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Ethiopia is a landlocked country and movement of the import and export commodities depends on
neighboring coastal countries port. The country is challenged in traversing through the neighboring
countries due to high port charges and less effective logistics systems in the inland activities of import
–export commodities. The development of logistics concept is in an infant stage which has not given
special concern till recent years. There is a larger gap between the industry development and the
logistics concept nationally.
This thesis was to assess the logistics chain of fertilizer from Djibouti port and maize improved seed
from production area, observe the seasonality of fertilizer flow, minimize the logistics chain costs and
lead time, identification of barriers of fertilizer flow throughout the distribution network and make
recommendations for efficient and effective logistics chain.
Logistics chain of fertilizer was not well coordinated between the stakeholders. Warehouse-transport
interface was the main challenge in overall efficiencies of logistics chain. The challenges are mainly
unloading problems due to uncoordinated cooperative unions with transporters and importers. Late
delivery of fertilizer to farmers especially during the farming time affected the effective application to
the farm. The maize improved seed price was observed incomparable with the selling prices of
farmers’ product of similar quantity.
Seasonality of fertilizer flow from port was checked with one way ANOVA comparison test using
SPSS 15.0. Demand forecasting was done with time series method and the forecasted value was
adjusted with seasonal index. Location analysis was done with center of gravity method using the
annual consumption of fertilizer for each zone of the country. The coordinates of each zone for this
method was determined from GIS 9.3 based on the mean center of woredas’ population within the
zone. To determine the dominant consumer level of fertilizer in Ethiopia, Cluster Mapping and hotspot
analysis was made using GIS 9.3 based on the average six year consumption levels of each zone.
Route optimization was also made with GIS 9.3 from Djibouti port to the central warehouses. The
result might not be reliable for some routes as it was not used travel time for the optimization instead
travel distance which provided the shortest possible distance for the un updated national digital road
networks.
The pair wise mean comparison of the four quarters indicated that there were a significant different
fertilizer flow during quarter 1 (September, October, November) with Quarter 2 (December, January,
February) and Quarter 3(March, April, May) but not different with Quarter 4(June, July, August).
Using location analysis, proposed warehouses were suggested for efficient distributions of fertilizer
throughout the country. The optimum route obtained in some cases required to be checked accounting
for road condition.
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Keywords
Analysis, Logistics Chain, Fertilizer, Seed, Production Area, Farmers