Market Participation Among Cassava Farmers In South-Eastern Nigeria

The functioning of food markets in many developing countries is hampered by the high costs involved in market exchange. The relative magnitudes of these transaction costs depend on the farmers' access to infrastructure (roads). High transport costs are significant constraints to market participation, reflecting the poor state of rural transport infrastructure in the study areas. In developing countries, smallholder farmers find it difficult to participate in markets because of a range of constraints and barriers reducing the incentives for participation, which may be reflected in hidden costs that make access to markets and productive assets difficult. Transaction costs, that is, observable and non-observable costs associated with exchange, are the embodiment of access barriers to market participation by resource poor smallholders The identification of these transaction costs factors could assist in identifying policy interventions and/or institutional innovations to alleviate constraints and improve the ability of small-scale farmers to be part of the commercial agricultural economy.