ASSESSMENT OF PUBLIC RELATIONS AMONG CERTIFIED AND NON-CERTIFIED COCOA MARKETERS IN ONDO STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

Analysis of factors influencing public relations (PR) in agricultural marketing are scarce in the literature. Thus, this study identified the different types of adopted PR strategies, described the structure of cocoa market, estimated the marketing margin, determined factors affecting PR strategies and outlined the major challenges hindering the use of PR among certified and non-certified cocoa marketers. A combination of purposive and proportional sampling techniques were used to select 120 respondents for the study. To achieve the research objectives, the analytical tools are: descriptive statistics, Likert-scale, Herfindal Index, marketing efficiency model, marketing margin and multiple regression analysis. The result revealed that the most frequently used PR strategies was phone calls. The Herfindahl Index value of 0.19 and 0.12 suggested that the structure of cocoa markets among the certified and non-certified marketers was slightly concentrated and non-concentrated respectively. Moreover, the higher efficiency (122.6%) and marketing margin (18.44%) values for the certified cocoa marketers revealed that they are more productive than the non-certified marketers. Age, marketing margin, cost of damaged cocoa beans and household size are the important variables explaining the adoption of PR strategies among certified cocoa marketers. On the other hand, marketing margin, cost of damaged cocoa beans and household size are the important variables influencing the adoption of PR strategies among non-certified marketers. The most important factors hindering cocoa marketing are high cost of transportation and commission among certified and non-certified cocoa marketer respectively. We recommend the use of mobile phone and training of marketers on use of PR strategies and modern cocoa processing techniques. Irregular network, high airtime tariff and input subsidies challenges should be addressed by the government to reduce wastage in the industry.