Economic Evaluation of Kola-nut Processing and Marketing in South West, Nigeria.

Abstract

The study was carried out in South West Nigeria to evaluate the profitability and factors contributing to the
sustainability of Kola-nut. Data were collected from 160 kola-nut marketers using multistage sampling
technique. The first stage was the selection of two states, Ogun and Osun states being the major producer of
Kola-nut in Southwest Nigeria. The second stage was the purposive selection of two Local Government Areas
from each state. The third stage involved a random selection of five communities each from the selected Local
Government Areas. The fourth stage involved the random selection of twenty-one (21) kola-nut marketers in
each of the selected communities in Ogun State while eleven (11) kola-nut marketers were randomly selected
from each of the selected communities in Osun State. Thus 105 and 55 marketers were selected from Ogun and
Osun States respectively.
Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, gross margin and linear regression. Result showed that kola-
nut marketing is dominated by women. Results show that the mean age of the respondents was 64 years which
shows that most of these women are elderly with quite a number of working experience in kola-nut trading.
Most of them have no formal education while 20% have primary and secondary education respectively.
Regression results show that the age of the traders, level of education, years of experience,
packaging/preservation and transportation are major significant factors contributing to the marketing of kola-
nut. Therefore, adult education, preservation and packaging techniques should be paramount for the
marketers for enhanced marketing skills.