ABSTRACT

This study examined the market orientation and participation of smallholder cassava agripreneurs in Abia State, Nigeria. The specific objectives were to describe the socio-economic profile of the cassava agripreneurs’, examine cassava agripreneurs’ market orientation and participation, estimate the determinnants of cassava agripreneurs’ market orientation and participation, examine the performance of cassava agripreneurs’, and examine the challenges faced by the cassava agripreneurs’. The study made use of multi-stage sampling techniques in selecting 120 respondents for the study. Data were collected through a well-structured questionnaire and analyzed with descriptive statistics (mean, frequency and percentage), market orientation and participation index, multiple regression, and net return analysis. The result of the descriptive statistics showed that most (60%) of the cassava agripreneurs were males, agripreneurs within the age bracket of 41-50 years participated more (65%), while most (75%) of the agripreneurs were married. Also, most (55%) of the respondents’ household size was between 4-6, and 67.5% of the respondents belonged to a cooperative society, while most (67.5) of the agripreneurs has secondary as their level of education.  Moreso, most (45%) of the respondents had 11-15 years of experience in market participation. Most agripreneurs (60%) had farm size of 0.1-1hectare, while most (71.67%) had access to market information. The result of the market participation index showed that 97.78% of the cassava products were highly commercialized, while the market orientation index of 0.82 indicates that the agripreneurs had high level of market orientation. The regression result for market participation index showed that labor, education, technology, credit, and market information were all directly related to market participation and significant at 1%. Experience, selling price and capital were positively signed, and significant at 5%, while gender and income were negatively signed with 5% and 10% levels of significant respectively. The regression result for market orientation index showed income, experience, labor, technology, gender, and credit were all directly related to market orientation and significant at 1%, while education, and market information were positively signed and both significant at 5%. Distance to market, and age were negatively related to market orientation and significant at 10% and 1% respectively. The net-return analysis result showed that on the average, a cassava agripreneur makes ₦997,158.63 profit for a production season, while the mean rating from the four-point likert scale result indicated that lack of infrastructure (2.58), lack of suitable planting equipment (2.68), low capital base (2.65), lack of technical expertise (2.71), and lack of mechanization/power (2.63) were accepted as a major challenge faced by the cassava agripreneurs as the mean scores for these challenges were above 2.50. The study concluded that a market-oriented approach and active participation will empower smallholder cassava agripreneurs to unlock their full potential, contribute to local economic development, and play a vital role in driving the growth of the cassava industry on a broader scale. Therefore, the study  recommends that youths and households are encouraged to participate in the business. This is because; cassava is a high-yielding crop, which obviously generates profit for farmers.