Market Integration And Pricing Efficiency Of Soyabeans In Benue And Enugu States, Nigeria

ABSTRACT

The study analysed market integration and pricing efficiency of soyabeans in Benue and

Enugu States, Nigeria. Low household demand for soyabeans makes its production and

marketing less popular amongst farmers and marketers which leads to marketing

inefficiency. A two-stage sampling technique was used to select 207 respondents.

Secondary data comprising monthly retail prices (urban and rural) of soyabeans from

1999 to 2013 was also collected BNARDA and ENADEP. Descriptive statistics,

regression, Herfindal Hirschman Index, Gini Coeffiient, Johansen Co-integration, Spatial

price model, t-test and correlation analysis were the analytical techniques used. It was

found that soyabeans marketing was dominated by married (80%), literate (91.3%) males

(63.3%), with a mean annual income of N474,370. The factors that determine the volume

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of soyabeans marketed include price of soyabeans (-1.515), transfer and handling costs

(0.345), education (0.157) and quantity of loan (0.035). Although, soyabeans market was

characterized by many buyers and sellers with no barriers to entry and exit, the high value

of HHI got for wholesalers and retailers (2,017.18 and 1,081.97) indicated high

concentration of soyabeans in the hands of few marketers. This was further supported by

high inequalities in the distribution of sales among wholesalers and retailers respectively

as evident in the values (0.84 and 0.81) of gini coefficients. Whereas few marketers (6.8%)

had negative marketing margins, their mean was 20.40%. Average net margin for Benue

and Enugu soyabeans marketers were calculated as N405.79 and N786.26, respectively

which represented about 6.24% and 10% of the cost priCHAPTER ONE