ANALYSIS OF TOMATOES MARKETING IN AKURE NORTH LOCAL GOVERNMENT, ONDO STATE, NIGERIA.

ABSTRACT This research examined the Economic Analysis of Tomatoes Marketing in Akure North, LGA Ondo State, Nigeria. This study described the socio-economic characteristics of tomatoes traders, describe the marketing channels of tomatoes, estimate the profitability of tomatoes marketing, determine the factor influencing the sales of tomatoes marketing and identify the constraints faced by tomatoes traders in the study area. Primary data was used for the study and collected with a well-designed questionnaire. A multi stage sampling technique was use to purposively select four markets from the communities and randomly select 120 respondent from the markets. The data collected was analyzed using descriptive statistics for socio-economic characteristics of tomatoes traders, marketing channel of tomatoes and the challenges faced by tomatoes traders in the study area, gross margin and marketing margin was used to estimate the profitability of tomatoes marketing, (OLS) was used to determine the factor influencing the sales of tomatoes marketing. The result revealed 50% of the tomatoes traders was between the ages of 36-45 years the average trader age was 44.1years. Female traders dominate the tomatoes marketing with a percentage of 92.5%. Majority of the tomatoes trader of 50.8% had formal education which is primary education. The average household size was 5.5 persons. Most tomatoes traders (50.8%) sourced their capital for tomatoes business from personal savings. Majority of the respondent 39.2% got their tomatoes from the farmer and local assemblers. The results from cost and return estimate shows that the average purchasing price for tomatoes ₦32,391 per create and selling price was ₦42,205. The gross margin was ₦552,489. Return on investment was 1.11 and this result implies that tomatoes marketing is profitable, the result from regression analysis shows that sex of respondent, income membership association, purchasing price are statistically significant at 1-5 percent level. Lack of storage facilities was the major challenge faced by most of tomatoes traders, it was recommended that there should be provision for storage facilities to help reduce marketing costs and aid marketing of tomatoes.