ABSTRACT

This work was carried out to study the economic analysis of cassava processing • activities in Ikwuano Local Government Area of Abia. Information were gathered from sixty (60) processors and analysed to determine the profitability of processing cassava tubers into garri, abacha and fufu. A combination of purposive and multistage sampling techniques was used to select communities and processors on who well structured questionnaires were administered. For detailed study, descriptive statistics like percentages frequencies and tables were used. Netreturn analysis was used to determine the profitability of the processing activities. The results showed that majority of the respondents were female who are still in their active and productive age, married with large household sizes. They were majorly graduates from secondary school and had good experience in processing activities. The result also showed that garri, fufu and abacha enterprises are profitable enterprises with average of N90697.33, N8 822 and N2 641.83. Garri enterprise was observed to be more profitable, followed by fufu enterprise and then abacha enterprise. The result from the research also showed multiples constraints to processing activities in the study area. The major constraints from the result included high cost of transportation, lack of finance for funding the processing activities, lack of electricity and other basic amenities fluctuation of prices of products, grating problem resulting grating machines, lack of access to labour, poor storage problem, competition in the market and bad road. The research also recommended that government should make policies that will bring solution to the constraints faced by cassava processors and well as providing basic amenities to encourage the processors and encourage the youth to be engage in cassava production and processing