Economic Analysis of Yam Marketing in Ukum Local Government Area of Benue State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study analysed the economics of yam marketing in Ukum Local Government Area of Benue State, Nigeria. The specific objectives of the study were to; describe the socio economic characteristics of yam marketers; determine factors influencing yam marketing; and identify constraints faced by yam marketing in the study area. The study used primary data collected from a sample of 60 yam marketers through a well-structured questionnaire. The collected data were analysed using descriptive statistics, multiple regression and factor analysis. The study revealed that yam marketing enterprise was dominated by female gender (80.3%) than their male counterpart. The result also indicates that most of the yam marketers were married (88.5%), had average of 9 years of marketing experience (77.0%), had attended primary education (57.4%) and majority belong to non-members of cooperative (75.4%). The result also further indicates that most of the marketers did not access credit (78.7%), had household size of between 5-10 at (70.5%) and most of them were within the youthful age of 31- 40 (39.3%). The mean annual income was ₦ 1,569,836.07. The multiple regression revealed that marketing experience (-0.77) and access to credit (1.05) were all significant with negative and positive for marketing experience and access to credit respectively but at different level of significant. For overall model, the R-square was found to be 0.4510 at 45% and F-value (4.38) was positive and significant at 1 percent level of significance thus rejecting the null hypotheses implying that there was significant difference in factors influencing yam marketing in the study area. The result on factor analysis revealed categorised the challenges to yam marketing into three factors namely; socio-economic, infrastructural and political administrative factors respectively. The study recommended that Benue State government in partnership with Local Government Councils and other institutions should establish a fund for yam marketers to enable them access credit facilities for their businesses. This will facilitate more entry into yam marketing in the study area and hence reduce the level of market concentration that currently tends towards oligopoly at wholesale level. The study also recommended that yam marketers in the study area should be encouraged to form cooperatives for easy accessibility of loan in order to reduce their financial constraints.