ABSTRACT
Banana marketing has the tendency of improving the lives of marketers in most developing countries of the world. Unfortunately, marketers of bananas suffer financial losses due to post-harvest losses as the quality and consequent cost prices of bananas continued to remain threatened. The study examined the post-harvest losses in banana marketing in Oredo local government area of Edo state, Nigeria. The study specifically examined the socio-economic characteristic of banana marketers in the study area, determined the factors responsible for post-harvest losses in banana marketing in the study area, determined the physical and financial value of these banana losses in the study area, identified the ways to reduce post-harvest losses in banana marketing in the study area and identified the constraints encountered by banana marketers in the study area.
Data was collected using well structured questionnaire administered to eighty respondents selected using snowballing techniques across four markets in Oredo local government area. Descriptive statistics such as mean, frequency counts and standard deviation was used to analyze data, while, regression analysis was used to test the hypothesis using a multiple linear regression model.
The study showed that most of the respondents (97.5%) were females and a larger proportion (51.25%) were between the age of 31-50 years. The results from the study identified the major factors responsible for post-harvest losses in the study area which were heat, mechanical injury, lack of technical know-how, low patronage, over ripeness and over loading. The results of the study also estimated the physical loss to be about 4.02kg per marketer per week with value of about N1,150. The result of the multiple linear regression analysis showed a significant relationship between the age, experience, weight of bananas bought, household size, primary education, 3 day market periodicity, wholesaler and post-harvest loss in banana marketing. The results from the study indicated that the major management practices used by the banana marketers were grading/sorting and keeping under shade away from sunlight. The results also showed that the major constraints faced by banana marketers in the study area were lack of finance, bad weather and poor market information. Based on the findings, Access to credit loan should be provided in order for the banana marketers to properly finance the business with improved storage techniques.
