Understanding cooperative membership and maize market participation in Rwanda: A Bayesian triple-hurdle analysis

Smallholder market participation studies often focus narrowly on selling decisions, overlooking the institutional role of agricultural cooperatives, particularly in contexts like Rwanda, where cooperatives underpin agricultural policy. Consequently, empirical evidence on how cooperative membership shapes farmers’ commercialization across institutional engagement, market entry and sales intensity remains limited. To address this gap, we apply a Bayesian triple-hurdle model to survey data from 615 rural maize farmers in Rwanda to analyse factors associated with three sequential decisions: whether to join a cooperative, whether to participate in maize markets, and the quantity of maize sold. Our results show that formal education, access to credit, agroforestry adoption and extension services consistently drive the likelihood of both cooperative membership and market participation. In contrast, household and farm size significantly influence the intensity of market participation but not initial cooperative entry. Geographic disparities also emerge, with farmers in districts with stronger market access or better infrastructure more likely to participate and to sell larger volumes. These findings highlight the need for integrated policy interventions that simultaneously promote cooperative participation, market access, and production capacity through strengthened rural education, expanded extension services and improved financial access for inclusive smallholder commercialization in Rwanda and other cooperative-driven agricultural economies.