The study dealt with marketing of uziza in Egor Local Government Area of Edo state. The study was conducted to identify the socio-economic characteristics of respondent, the marketing channels, estimate the determinant of sales, determine the producer’s share of retail price and gross marketing margin, carryout a functional analysis of gross marketing margin and identify the main problems of uziza marketing in the study area. Data were collected through the use of questionnaire supplemented with oral interview and personal observation in the market. Five markets were purposively selected in the local government area and twenty marketers were sampled from each market giving a total sample size of a hundred respondents for the study.
Descriptive and budgetary tools were used to analyze data collected. Majority of the marketers interviewed were females(97%), married(68%),within the age group of 41-50years(28%), having only primary education(39%) with less than a year experience(91%) in the trade and have between 6-10years(36%) of business experience. The study encountered mainly retailers (68%). The price of the leaf was a major determinant of sales with a price elasticity of 0.982. 65.11% of the marketing margin was incurred as cost in marketing the vegetable while 34.89% as profit indicating that for every naira invested in the business, a return of 0.0249 naira was derivable.
Packaging and washing (1.91%), transportation (54.05%), storage (0.17%), market charges (8.24%) and tax (0.70%), and marketer’s profit (34.89%) accounted for the difference between the producer’s price and consumer’s price. It was also observed that the marketers faced the problem of high cost of vegetable (30.83%), transportation (25.83%) and post harvest loses arising from storage and preservation problem (24.16%). It was established in this study that uziza leaf marketing is profitable in the study area. Therefore it is recommended that the Government should provide good roads and reduce cost of fuel which will ultimately lower transportation cost and reduce the price of vegetable.
