Assessment of Internet Marketing of Cassava Tubers; Its Implications to Nigeria Cashless Policy in Portharcourt Metropolis

Abstract

This study assesses the internet marketing of Cassava tubers and its implications to Nigeria cashless policy in Port Harcourt metropolis, Rivers State. A random sampling technique was used for the selection of 83 respondents of cassava tuber marketers in Port Harcourt metropolis. Primary data was used and collected with the aid of structured questionnaire. Descriptive Statistics and percentage analysis were used to analyse the data. It was revealed that 61% of the respondents are females, while 39% of males. Implying that there are more women participants in the marketing of cassava tubers than men. Also 59% were between the ages of 20-40years, and 36% were between the ages of 40-60years; Implying that most of the respondents are of active age. Findings further shows that about 50.60% of respondent had no form of formal education, while 33.73% had only primary education. This implies that majority of cassava tuber marketers have no formal education. It was found that 59% of respondent have marketing experience of 0-6years and 34.94% of respondents had an experience of 6-12years in cassava tuber marketing. This is an indication that most of the marketers have significant experience in cassava tuber marketing. Furthermore, a percentage of 51.81% of respondents are married and this attributes to the fact that cassava tuber marketing is a profitable venture that can serve as a reliable source of livelihood for the family. 59% has household size of 0-5 persons, this implies that majority of marketers had or utilized family labour during operations.Most half of the world population has access to the internet; this is unreasoningly in developed nations like Nigeria and other African nations, in rural communities where education and literacy rates are significantly low, mobile phones technology tends to be used for communication and social media. This offers a great difficulty for the introduction of digital agriculture applications which necessitates more forward thinking digital skills, low global Smartphone ownership in rural communities in addition to the high cost of internet and insufficient system coverage also present difficulties of mobile agricultural applications. An effective internet marketing medium of cassava tubers, given the cashless policy can help to increase the demand for the crop, and improve the livelihood of marketers and other stakeholders in the value chain. From the above information gotten, there is need for educating and creating the awareness of internet marketing tools as a marketing medium; as this would help to save cost and increase Marketer’s Revenue.There is need for Creating/Educating the Awareness of the internet, as a marketing tool given the cashless policy in Nigeria, Subsidy on internet devices/gadgets should be established by the government; in order to improve internet marketing of products sequel to the cashless policy. There is a need for adequate internet platforms, for the marketing of agricultural producers.