The objective of this article is to identify the determinant of farmers’ bargaining power and analyse factors that explain the variation in bargaining power. A detailed set of variables covering farmers’ characteristics, assets, transaction types and information obtaining methods is used in the analysis. The emphasis in this article is on observing the conditions that lead to an improvement in price bargaining from the farmer’s perspective. This approach is based on a number of prior findings from the literature. First, bargaining power can be price and non-price related, with the former being considered the more serious problem. This was confirmed in this study, as 61 per cent of respondents reported ‘Buyer did not give promised price’ as the main problem. Second, farmers’ perspectives were chosen to inform the analysis as farmers are large in number. In addition, Gong, Parton, Cox and Zhou (2007) reveal that farmers’ bargaining power plays an important role in determining choice of marketing channel in China. They found that bargaining power is measured in ordinal rankings based on farmers’ perceptions; the higher the bargaining power of the farmer, the more likely that farmer is to use forward contracting and directly marketing of their product to the processor, rather than to use intermediaries. Such a scenario would indicate a high-value end market. Third, the procedures behind bargaining power vary from case to case and do not match a single theoretical framework, as mentioned in Jaleta and Gardebroek (2007). Fourth, perception, which is based on subjective preference, is measured due to its unique role in behaviour and decision-making processes. Adesina and Baidu-Forson (1995) use farmers’ perceptions on variables that affect farmers’ access to information to explain the determinants of technology adoption with reference to its importance for policy formulation. The contribution of this study is to present the determinants that can affect farmers’ perceptions of better bargaining power over price within a certain period.