-
Cassava Processing And Marketing Option For Sustainable Agricultural Development
CHAPTER ONE -- [Total Page(s) 4]
Page 2 of 4
-
-
-
1.2 STATLEMENT OF PROBLEM
Agricultural marketing efficiency has been
bedeviled by both external and internal market related factors. These
factors are also peculiar to cassava marketing in Nigeria and Enugu in
particular (FMARD 2004). The markets have served the economy well in the
past but currently inadequate in the face of growing demand for
products due to population growth and changing of dietary demand
patterns. There is the inadequacy of transport service in rural areas.
The Rural feeder roads are in a very bad condition. The entire rural
communities rely mainly on human transport before they will talk of
conveying their produce.
There is the problem of marketing
information because the required data required are not available and
even those that are available is not being managed properly to generate
the required information to support decision making by the producers,
consumers, government officials and other market participants.
There
are no official or organized ways of transmitting price information in
Nigerian’s agricultural markets; therefore there is no mechanism for
coordinating production activities of the millions of farmers with the
demand of millions of individual, corporate and institutional consumers.
The paucity of data and information also limit forecasting planning
farm management and marketing practices.
Another problem associated
with the poor marketing for agricultural produce in Nigeria is the
existence of an inefficient and inadequate storage system. As a result
there is a substantial waste at the farm level and the poor storage
system also contributes to price fluctuations in the agricultural
markets whereby produce prices are low during harvest time’s adversely
affecting farmer incomes. At times the price fluctuations are magnified
by speculative activities in the face of scarcity of market information
all in favour of marketers only further aggravating the poor economic
position of farmers.
Another related problem is that of poor storage
system in the low level of processing of agricultural produce in
Nigeria, Enugu state in particular. In view of the low level of food
processing in Nigeria for example the use of this activity in increasing
effective supply of food as well as solve some nutritional problems of
human beings is not possible.
There is also the limited nature of raw
agricultural produce processing limits how this potentially flourishing
agro-business can contribute to enhancing the economics value of food,
improving farmers income by providing additional outlets for their
produce, particularly in the harvest seasons when prices tend to be low,
generating employment, enhancing the storage of food and other produce,
and reducing dependence on imported processed food and other
agro-industrial products.
In addition to problems associated with
inadequacy of processing facilities for food and other agricultural
produce in Nigeria, there is a such as irradiation and freeze dying to
reduce rotting in particular and spoilage in general and thereby
increasing effective agricultural supplies in the country.
Another
economic problem associated with agricultural marketing in Nigeria,
Enugu state to be precise has to do with the absence of standardization
of products in the market place. Standardized system of grading and
measurement, which enhances marketing efficiency, is not a feature of
agricultural markets in Nigeria. Grades are determined arbitrarily by
sizes, colour or smell. Measures come in various types of metal and
plastic bowls, dishes, tins basket and calabashes. The use of weighing
scales is limited which explains why prices are determined by haggling
between sellers and buyers. In addition, sorting and packaging
activities are not carried out further reducing the ability of using a
sound marketing system to boost farmers’ income and ensure adequate
protection of consumers in the country.
Agricultural produce supply
and price instabilities characterized the Nigerian agricultural markets.
By the nature of agricultural production in Nigeria and the limitation
imposed by the marketing problems highlighted previously, farmers
generally adjust current productions according to prevailing prices in
the immediate past period or season. When the price of commodity is
lower than expected in a particular season due to period to over supply
into the market, farmers will cut back on production and supply less
into the market the next period. This subsequent short supply in the
next time leads to supply and price gyrations which follow a cobweb-like
pattern which may be explosive depending on how elastic the supply side
of the commodity market is.
CHAPTER ONE -- [Total Page(s) 4]
Page 2 of 4
-
