Channels of Distribution of Cowpea in Borno State of Nigeria

Abstract

The study examined the two types marketing channels of distribution of Agricultural Produce in Borno State of Nigeria. These are the consumer goods marketing channel as well as the industrial goods marketing channels. The aim of the study was to establish if there are differences between the conventional marketing channels and that which is being utilized for the movement of the produce from the producers to the final consumers in the state. Data for the study were collected from both primary and secondary sources. The primary data was collected with structured questionnaire administered on producers, wholesalers and retailers of agricultural produce in Borno state. The secondary data was collected from journals articles and textbooks. Multi sampling technique was  employed in the study. Simple random sampling was employed to select one local government area. The use of purposive sampling was used to capture the channel members as well as LGAs that relevant to the study. Descriptive statistics, Analysis of variance ANOVA were used in analyzing the data. The major findings of the study showed there were no differences in the channels used in the three Local Government Areas studied .Most (62.7%) of the cowpea marketers in Borno State used the conventional marketing channel in distributing their produce while 38.3% of the respondents made use of another channel that had more number of agents than the conventional marketing channels. Based on the findings of the study, it was recommended that the conventional marketing channels should be transformed to vertical marketing channels and farmers should be financially empowered, encouraged to form cooperatives.

Keywords: Channels, distribution, Cowpea, marketing, agricultural produce