Economics of Marketing of Food Grains in South Western Nigeria

The marketing and distribution of food grains are characterized by a low level of efficiency and high marketing margins. This has caused high product prices and limited the accessibility of the commodities to numerous prospective consumers. The implication is chronic malnutrition in children and various degrees of manifestation of diseases in nursing mothers and adults. This study therefore treats the economics of marketing of food grains in South Western Nigeria with a view to addressing some of the militating factors in distribution chains. A total of 250 respondents were sampled for the study in the five states in the zone. A multistage sampling technique was used to gather the sample. The marketing margin was highest for food grain marketers in Osun State, with N900.00 per 100 kg of maize. The least value of N433.00 per 100 kg was however recorded for marketers in Oyo State. The average marketing margin for food grain marketers in the region is N662.60 per 100 kg of maize. The average marketing margin for cowpea stood at N1 347.60, which is slightly higher than the least value of margin recorded for the marketers in Oyo State. Marketers in Ogun State recorded the least margin of N300.00 per 50 kg bag of polished rice. This is against the N550.00 margin recorded by the marketers in Ekiti State. The average marketing margin for the product in the region is N440.00, which is slightly lower than the marginal values in Osun, Ondo and Ekiti States. The mean marketing efficiency for maize in South Western Nigeria is 0.82. This is slightly lower than the average efficiency level for Oyo State (i.e. 0.90). For cowpea and polished rice, the mean marketing efficiency levels are 0.78 and 0.71, respectively. The levels of market concentration stood at 0.326, 0.369 and 0.4943 for the marketers of maize, cowpea and polished rice, respectively. The marketers of these commodities should be more evenly distributed over the marketing space, so that the level of marketing efficiency could improve. The bottlenecks created by the activities of middlemen in the distribution network should also be minimized, so that many households in the region can have access to the food grain products.