ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF DRY MAIZE MARKETING IN BENIN CITY, EDO STATE

ABSTRACT

The main objective of this research work was to analyze the economic analysis of dry maize marketing in Ikpoba-Okha and Egor Local Government Area of Benin City, Edo State. A three stage sampling procedure was used to select 80 respondents. Data were collected with the aid of a well-structured questionnaire and were later analyzed through the use of descriptive statistics and multiple linear regression analysis. The result revealed that majority of the maize marketers (61.3%) had their age between 30-39 years in the study area, while more than half of the maize marketers (63.7%) are married, and 41% of the respondents have just primary schooling experience. Again, high proportion of the marketers had marketing experience ranging between 4-6 years. The transportation cost and Market charges are significant at 1% level of significance, while Packaging cost is significant at 5% level. An adjusted R² value of 0.8506 which implies that the regression equation accounted for 85.06% of the independent variable like age, Gender, Marital status, educational level and Household size. It is recommended that marketers should be assisted in assessing credit facilities from banks and other financial  institutions for the expansion of their business and also marketers are encouraged to form cooperative groups.