Economic Analysis of Yam Producer-Marketers in APA Local Government Area of Benue State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study examines economic analysis of yam producer-marketers in Apa Local Government Area of Benue State, Nigeria. The specific objectives of the study were to; describe the socio-economic characteristics of yam producer-marketer; estimate cost and returns of yam producer-marketer; and identify factors that influence yam producer-marketer; Taro Yamane formula was adopted to determine the sample size of 60 and primary data was used and well-structured which were administered to the respondents in the study area. Analytical instruments such as descriptive statistics, gross margin and multiple regression were used to analysed data. The result analysed on descriptive statistics revealed that most of the yam producer- marketers were married (60.0%), had more years of experience (45.0%), had attended tertiary education (46.7%) and majority belong to members of cooperative (73.3%). The result also further indicates that most of the yam producer-marketers (63.3%) had household size of between 5-10 and most of them were within the youthful age of 31- 40 (35.0%). The mean annual income of ₦ 1,919,500.00 and most of the yam produce-marketers in the study area had annual income of ≤ 10 represented at 45.0%. The result on gross margin indicates that the yam production and marketing was profitable in the study area since the revenue generated per tuber (₦ 891,67) exceeds the total variable cost (₦ 675.46) with the gross margin of ₦ 216.21 and cost of yam constituting the highest cost represented (87.4%) among the variable cost followed by transportation (8.1%) in the study area. The return on investment was ₦ 0.32 implying that for each one naira invested, there is return of ₦ 0.32 that is realised. The result on multiple regression revealed that age (-0.71), education level (0.33), annual income (0.85) and marketing cost (0.58) were all significant but with different signs implying different level of significance. For overall model, the R-square was found to be 0.7827 at 78.3% and F-value (18.41) was positive and significant at 1% level of significance thus rejecting the null hypothesis implying that there was significant difference in factors influencing yam production and marketing in the study area. Based on the findings of the study, it was recommended that Benue State government in partnership with Local Government Councils and other institutions should establish a fund in the yam producing and marketing areas to enable them access credit facilities for their businesses. Yam producers and marketers in the study area should encourage to form cooperatives for easy accessibility of loan in order to reduce their financial constraints.