ABSTRACT

The study examined the economics of egg marketing in Abia State. The specific objectives of' lie study are to describe the socio-economic characteristics of' poultry egg traders, describe the marketing channel, marketing margin, determine the efficiency of poultry egg marketing, estimate and analyze the determinants of egg marketing margin and identify the problems of' egg marketing in the study area. To achieve these objectives the three (3) agricultural zones that make up Abia State (Umuahia, Aba and Ohafia) were studied. Structured questionnaires was used to collect data from 60 respondents who were randomly selected from six markets (from the three (3) zones. Which include Ahia Ohuo and cementery market from Abia zone, Ozuakoli and Umuahia main market from Umuahia zone, Ahia Nkwo market and Elu market from Ohafia zone. These comprised thirty wholesalers and thirty retailers. Simple descriptive statistics such as percentages, frequency tables, mean, Pearson correlation and marketing margin were used to analyze the data. The result of the analysis shows that the marketers (Wholesalers and retailers) were 60% and 36.67% respectively and the age range was 41-50 indicating that marketers were in their middle ages. Majority had 5-8 educational qualification the retailers were more educational (66.6%) while the wholesalers had (63.33%). The household size was 4-6 persons for wholesalers while for retailers less than 4 persons. Majority of the marketers were males. Majority both wholesalers and retailers were married. The wholesalers had more years of' experience greater than 1 5 while the retailers had more years of experience from 6-10 years. For occupational status, other occupation scored 43.33% for wholesalers while 70% for retailers. None membership of co-operative for both wholesalers and retailers were 60% and 70% respectively. The distribution channel includes producers, wholesalers, retailers and consumers. The gross margin for wholesalers was 38, 472.67 and 14,761.42 for retailers which indicate that the business was profitable. The wholesalers had more gross margin than the retailers. The marketing margin for wholesalers was 10.46% while for retailers it was 5.24% wholesalers had more marketing margin than retailers. For marketing efficiency wholesalers had 76. I 8% while retailers had 64.32%, this indicates that the poultry egg market in the study was efficient, but the wholesalers were more efficient than the retailers. From the regression estimate age, household size, marital status co-operative society transportation cost was negatively signed with age having a significant of 5% while education, sex, experience, price was positively signed and highly significant at different percentage levels. From the regression  result gender, price, marketing experience, saler dummy were positively significant at 10% ,5%,l% and 5% respectively.. The result shows that breakages was the most important problem affecting marketing of eggs in the study area followed by high transportation cost. Based on the findings of this study it is recommended that improvement in infrastructure, the use of paper crates instead of plastic crates so as to improve the efficiency of egg marketing.