Economics of Marketing Garri in Ikpoba-Okha

  Summary

This study looked into the marketing of garri in Ikpoba Okha Local Government Area of Edo State. However, the specific objectives of the study were to describe the socio-economic characteristics of garri marketers, examine the costs and returns to garri marketers, determine the market structure, conduct and performance for garri, and identify the constraints to garri marketing in the study area.

The results from the study showed that garri marketers had a higher population of female than male and were mostly middle aged who had average level of educational qualification which allows for easy marketing. The majority of garri marketers were married. Table 1 also shows the years of marketing experience of the respondents in the study area. The garri marketers had 57.5 percent of respondents who had a marketing experience of 11-20 years, 19.2 percent had a marketing experience of 1-10 years and 4.2 percent had a marketing experience of 31-40 years. Major constraints to marketing were high transportation costs, poor market access, and lack of access to credit facility, high market commission and poor market infrastructure. The regression result shows that marketing experience and marketing association were positive and statistically significant factors influencing the output of garri marketing while marketing cost, educational level and sex were negative and statistically significant factors influencing the output of garri marketing in the study area. The profitability result shows that for each ₦1 of revenue the marketer earns ₦0.67 in net profit which indicated high level of profitability in the study area. The major constraints to garri marketing were identified to be lack of access to credit, poor market infrastructure, and high transportation costs.