ABSTRACT
In Nigeria the price of chicken egg is not stable due to a variety of factors and there is a widened demand-supply gap as a result of the existence of an inefficient marketing system. The study evaluated Chicken Egg Marketing in Oshimili South Local Government Area, Delta State. It specifically identified the socio-economic characteristics of the chicken egg marketers, described the marketing channel, estimated the marketing margin and investigated the effects of cost of marketing functions on the magnitude of the marketing margin, and assessed the performance of egg marketing, evaluated the profitability of egg marketing and identified the constraints in the marketing of eggs in the study area.
A multistage sampling procedure was used to select chicken egg marketers in the study area. Data were collected from respondents using structured questionnaire administered. Both descriptive and inferential statistic were used for data analysis. The descriptive statistics involved frequency and percentages, inferential statistic was used to analyze the socio-economic characteristics of respondents. while Gross margin analysis was employed to determine the profitability of the egg business in the study area.
The result showed that majority 85% of the wholesalers and 71% retailers are married. 8% of the wholesalers are single, 6% are divorced and 2% are separated. 15% of the retailers are single, 5% are widowed 7% are divorced and 2% are separated. Majority 81% of the wholesalers had tertiary education, while 17% had secondary education, and 1% had primary education; also, about half 54% of the retailers had tertiary education, 43.9% had secondary education and 2.4% had no formal education. Analysis also revealed that 44% of these marketers were retailers while 56%were wholesalers. The profitability analysis showed that an average wholesale and retailer earned ₦143.1 and ₦418.3 as gross margin per tray. The result of the regression for the wholesalers revealed that the regressors (cost of the marketing functions) explained about 95.0% in the variability of the regressant (magnitude of the marketing margin; while for the retailers, it revealed that the regressors (cost of the marketing functions) explained about 67.0% in the variability of the regressant (magnitude of the marketing margin). The results showed that theft is the major constraint facing the wholesale marketers as well as the retail marketers of chicken egg in Oshimili Local Government, while poor packaging materials comes second. Inadequate Facilities and Breaking/spoilage of eggs are also serious constraints on wholesale chicken egg marketers, but not a constraint on retail marketers.
