THE ROLE OF COCOA BUYING AGENTS IN COCOA VALUE CHAIN IN SOUTHWESTERN NIGERIA
ABSTRACT
Cocoa buying agents play a major role as middlemen in cocoa marketing in Nigeria. They facilitate the movement of cocoa beans from the farmers to the end-users thus sustaining the continual production of cocoa. Therefore, a study like this which evaluate the activities of cocoa buying agents is quite imperative. Simple random sampling technique was used to select ninety-four respondents from the study area. Information was collected from the respondents with the aid of structured questionnaire and the data retrieved from the information collected were analysed using descriptive statistics as well as budgetary analysis. The study shows that 79.79% of the respondents are aged 50 years and below while 100% of the respondents are formally educated. Also, 6.40% of the respondents are licensed buying agents while 93.60% are local buying agents. All the respondent buying agents claimed that they sourced their products (cocoa beans) from cocoa farmers. All the respondents claimed that they assist cocoa farmers by giving them loans, 74.47% claimed that they supply inputs such as chemicals and implements to the farmers while 70.21% of the respondents claimed that they give training to farmers on how to produce good quality cocoa beans. The result of the budgetary analysis shows that the average gross margin per annum per buying agent was N417,361.28 showing that cocoa buying agents in the study area are operating profitably.The study recommends that government should assist cocoa buying agents by giving them a soft loan to run their business effectively.