ABSTRACT

Out of the three geo-economic zones in Imo state, Owerri zone was randomly selected. From that zone, five local government areas (LGAs) were randomly selected. In each of these LGAs, two major markets in terms of palm oil supply were randomly selected, making a total of ten markets. From each of the markets, five producers, wholesalers, retailers and consumers were randomly selected and interviewed using a set of well structured questionnaire and personal observation. Out of the 200 copies of questionnaires administered, 180 (90%) were successfully received, completed. Hence, the discussions and analysis were based on these. Both primary and secondary data were used in accomplishing the research work. Primary data were obtained from responses in the questionnaire returned by the respondents, while secondary data were sourced from texts, journals and other research works. Results showed that most of the middlemen (wholesalers and retailers) belong to the age ranges between 26 and 45years. The male middlemen are relatively older than the female ones. All the consumers and producers are married. All the female retailers are married while 87% of the wholesalers who are mostly males are married. Majority of the respondents, have household size of between six and 1 Opersons. Most of the middlemen respondents are traders. All of them had formal education. 1-lowever, none of them had tertiary education. None of the middlemen respondents had over twenty years experience, as a palm oil dealer. The result of the regression analysis carried out indicates that, at both the wholesale and retail levels, the socioeconomic variables considered have significant effects on the amount of palm oil bought for resale by both the wholesalers and the retailers respectively. In terms of structure, the study revealed that palm oil marketing in Imo state is carried out by small-scale producers, retailers, rural assemblers, wholesalers and consumers. Two slightly different types of palm oil exist. Information is not often available to the retailers. However, the wholesalers, usually have an idea of prices, from their trade association meetings. There is restriction to entry for the wholesalers, while for the retailers, there is free entry and exit. In terms of number of buyers and sellers at both the retail and wholesale level, there are many buyers and sellers at the retail level, but at the wholesale level, there are few wholesalers in each market as compared to the number of retailers. Going by the above discussion, it can be said that at the retail level, there is perfect competition, while at the wholesale level, the nature of the market structure is oligopolistic. There are two slightly different types of palm oil, which command different prices. Prices are determined by both buyers and sellers, although, at the wholesale level, wholesalers already have a kind of upper limit above which they would not buy. Customers are maintained through fair prices, honesty and advertising, especially by the retailers. Four different marketing channels were found to exist for palm oil marketing in Imo state. The average retailer bought and resold about 96tins (201itre containers) of palm oil every month , on average, while the average wholesalers bought and resold an average of 48 drums (9600 litres)of palm oil on monthly basis. The retailers and p wholesalers together received 37% of the consumers naira spent on palm oil as their marketing margin. The most important problems associated with palm oil marketing in Imo state are bad roads, high cost of transport and inadequate capital. On the basis of these findings, it was recommended that farmers cooperative marketing be encouraged to reduce the marketing channels existing. The study also recommended that commodity exchange marketing be introduced in Nigeria.