Sustainable coffee certification initiatives have created a fast growing niche market that promises to ameliorate smallholder coffee producers' hardships brought about by low coffee commodity prices in recent years. The current debate has focused on whether these initiatives are accessible, especially by smallholder farmers and whether they indeed deliver on this promise, with certification costs believed to constitute an entry barrier. However, evidence has emerged that even when free certification has been given to smallholder coffee farmers, some farmers continue to sell certified coffee in the conventional coffee markets. This study uses a double hurdle model to identify those factors that shape coffee growers choice of marketing channel and sales volume decisions once a marketing channel has been selected. The study concludes that labor availability (own and hired) and the size of farm holding are the main constraints to both participation in the sustainable coffee marketing channel and the sales volume to this channel. Revenue from crop sales other than coffee is also an important determinant of participation and sales volume. Age was the only demographic factor that was found to be statistically significantly related to participation and sales volume.
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