Socio-Economic and Profitability Analysis of Honey Marketing in Port Harcourt City Local Government Area of Rivers State, Nigeria

Abstract

Honey marketing can generate up to 10 billion USD, since the cumulative values are a function of it and other hive products. Considering its current domestic consumption rate in Nigeria being 380, 000 tonnes with a global price of about 4.5 billion dollars, less of it has been offered into the market against the heavy demand for it taking into consideration that the competition for it is increasingly becoming intense. There is therefore no significant reduction in the demand for honey.  Hence, the essence of the study is to analyse the profitability of marketing honey in Port Harcourt City Local Government Area of Rivers State, Nigeria. The study therefore, examined the socio-economic characteristics of honey marketers; measured the profitability analysis of the honey marketers; identified as well as the honey marketing channels; determined the effect of the socio-economic characteristics on the profitability of honey marketing; and ascertained the constraints to honey marketing in the study area. Purposive sampling technique was used to select 100 honey marketers. Data were presented and analyzed using descriptive statistics such as percentages, frequency distribution, budgetary (or gross margin) analysis and regression Analysis. The results indicated that 68% of the marketers were female, 92% received formal education and 39% of the respondents were between the ages of 31 – 40. Majority (48%) of the respondents had household size between 1–5 persons. The highest marketing experience was between 11 – 15years at 45%. Majority (44%) of the respondents indicated that they were married, while 33% started with capital ranging from N 21, 000 to N30, 000. Results show that majority (100%) of the respondents were confronted with the problem of inadequate honey supply. More so, majority (67%) of the respondents were retailers. The study further indicated that honey marketing enterprise was profitable with an average gross margin of N18, 223.3 per month. Regression analysis results showed that variables such as start-up capital, marketing experience, age and household size had significant influence on the profitability of honey marketing.  It was recommended that the government should ensure that road networks become efficient and pliable through the construction of new roads and rehabilitation of bad roads to better facilitates honey marketing mechanism.

Keywords: Honey, marketing, margins, profitability, Nigeria

DOI: 10.7176/JESD/11-6-01

Publication date:March 31^st 2020