ABSTRACT

This research examined the performance of cocoa seed marketing in Bende local government area of Abia state, Nigeria. The objectives of the study were: examine the socio- economics characteristics of the marketers, assess the Performance of cocoa seed with respect to net return, marketing margin and marketing efficiency., examine the factors influencing marketing efficiency of cocoa seeds in Abia state, ascertain the problems encountered by cocoa seed marketers in Bende local government area. Multi stage random sampling techniques was used to select 60 respondents. Data were analyzed using percentages, frequency tables, distribution table, mean, multiple regression analysis. The mean age of the markets is 43.33 which indicates that most of the marketers were still young and therefore have energy to transact business. The married had percentage of 61.6% which shows that married ones are more involved in cocoa seed marketing .The single and widowed had a percentage of 21.6% and 13.3% respectively as they can afford lesser capital required for running the business, this may be due to poverty since they are single parents. This may be due to poverty since they are single parents, tertiary education is 5.0% while secondary and primary are 61.6% and 33.3%. the result shows that few marketers had tertiary education while majority are fairly educated for without will find it difficult to calculate figures and will be cheated as well. The mean marketers fairly experience of the marketers is 9.33 this shows that most marketers are fairly experience. This is advantageous because marketing experience helps marketers to be more skillful and adapted to the business. The net monthly return for the cocoa seed marketers is N30861 .50 profitable. Finally (R2) and F-ratio values were 0.6753 and 7.32 respectively.