Value Chain Analysis of Soybean Production in Kaduna State, Nigeria.

Abstract

The study analyzed the value chain of soybean production in Kaduna State, Nigeria. The analysis was imperative, because of the increased emphasis on value addition to enhance the market value of soybean products. The objectives considered the socio – economic characteristics of the actors, determine cost and returns and analyze factors affecting profit margin and identified the most efficient stages of the value chain in the study areas as well as the constraints faced by various actors in the chain. The study adopted the multistage sampling technique and selected six villages from three selected LGAS of Kaduna State and 175 (80 producers, 29 wholesalers, 26 retailers and 40 processors) respondents were randomly selected for the study. Descriptive statistics was employed to described the actors, farm budget was used to determine the profit margin and multiple regression model was used to analyzed factors affecting profit margin of the various actors. The results revealed that majority of the actors in the chain were females with high educational mean above 7 years and highly participates in associations and their profit margin vary from one actor to the others. The processors had the highest profit margin of N 502,160.43, the wholesalers had N 343,756.95 while retailers had N131,848.45 and producers had the lowest profit margin of N 83,404.80 The results indicated that wholesalers is the most efficient with (1.92), this may be due to economic of scale that they engaged in and enjoyed cost of transport discounts. The processors follow with (1.82) efficiency, this may due to value added and their purchased of soy products at farm gate price by passing market agents that influence prices, (1.72) for retailers while producers had the least efficient of (1.60), this is due to high cost incurred in production. The constraints faced in the study areas includes inadequate capital ranked 1st for all the actors .The factors found to be positive and significantly influencing the soybean value chain were gender, farm size, education, experience, transport cost, credit, distance to market, labor and grinding cost. The study recommends strengthening strategies that with facilitates linking of value chain actors to credit facilities should be made available.