Income analysis of turmeric marketing in Onitsha agricultural zone, Anambra state, Nigeria

The study examined income analysis of turmeric marketing in Onitsha agricultural zone, Anambra State, Nigeria. Specifically, it described the socioeconomic characteristics, profitability, economic efficiency, and constraints of turmeric marketing. Multistage and sample random sampling methods were used to select 160 intermediaries 80 wholesalers and 80 retailers for the study. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, enterprise Budgeting, Shepherd-Futrell techniques, and relative index techniques. Findings from socioeconomic characteristics revealed that the turmeric market is dominated by males mostly at wholesale marketing than women (60.00%) showing signs of gender sensitivity at different levels in the study area. Findings from the profitability of turmeric marketing showed that for every 1 Naira invested in the business, wholesalers returned 24 kobo while retailers returned 1.61 kobo. The result of the analyses revealed that both the wholesalers and retailers did not attain efficiency of 100% in the marketing of turmeric implying the existence of good level of inefficiencies among the actors (wholesalers and retailers). The level of inefficiency was higher (80.29%) among the wholesalers than the retailers (38.3%) implying that the retailers were more efficient in the marketing of turmeric than the wholesalers. The findings on constraints showed that online marketing, transportation and taxes, and LGA charges were the most perceived constraints on the wholesale level while on the retail level were online marketing, irregularity of market days, and insufficient start-up capital. Marketers should be encouraged to learn the act of on-line marketing to avoid being left out in modern trading and soft loan and grants should be made available for genuine marketers for efficient marketing were recommended.