Abstract
This study assessed the effects of marketing costs on the gross margin of guinea corn retailers in Wukari, Taraba State, Nigeria. The main aim of the study is not to only obtain precise costs and margins estimates for the conventional marketing functions of guinea corn, but rather to make the result of the analyses usable to devise a policy framework for an effective marketing strategy and improvement in the efficiency of guinea corn marketing and agricultural produce/products markets in Taraba State and Nigeria in general. Structured questionnaire was used to illicit response from forty guinea corn retail marketers across six local government areas of the state during the 2017 marketing season. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data collected, while Ordinary Least Squares Analytical Procedure was used to determine the parameter estimates of marketing costs. The average retailers’ gross margin per 50 kg bag stood at N1,036.16, while price and transportation cost per 100 kg bag is N17,472.00 and N249.00, respectively. Storage cost for six months period stood at N163.00 per 100 kg bag. The results showed that retailers’ selling price, transport cost, storage and cost due to perishability have significant effects on retailers’ gross margin, at 8, 5, 10 and 9% levels, respectively. It is recommended that transportation facilities should be sustained by government, private individuals and corporate groups in addition to intensification of research into post-harvest storage and processing techniques. Again, funds and storage facilities should be made available to the marketers to enable them take advantage of bulk purchasing during harvesting seasons to ensure market expansion that will improve guinea corn marketing cum retailer gross margin like in the study area. Key words: Guinea corn, marketing costs, marketing margin, retailers.  
Highlights
Agriculture is an important sector in the Nigerian economy (Ivgababon, 2005)
This indicates that the retail market is dominated by those within productive, active struggling age brackets. This finding is in line with result of Emokaro and Egbodion (2014), in a study on effect of marketing cost on marketing margin realizable from beef sales in Benin City, Nigeria, which showed that majority (87.5%) were within the age bracket of 30-39 years, that is, were in their active age of production and (85%) of the marketers were married
The results of the regression analysis indicated that marketing cost explained about 91% of the systematic variation in the marketing margin realized from beef marketing in the study area
Summary
Agriculture is an important sector in the Nigerian economy (Ivgababon, 2005). It contributes about 40 to 42.1% of the total GDP; employs about 70% of the labour force; accounts for 70% of the non-oil exports and perhaps most importantly provides over 80% of food needs of the country.
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.