TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
1.3 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
1.5 RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS
1.6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
1.7 SCOPE OF THE STUDY
1.8 LIMITATION OF THE STUDY
1.9 DEFINITION OF TERMS
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 AGRICULTURAL SECTOR POLICIES IN NIGERIA
2.2 DISTRIBUTION OF AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS
2.3 CHANNELS OF DISTRIBUTION OF AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS
2.4 CONSTRAINTS TO DISTRIBUTION OF AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.1 INTRODUCTION
3.2 RESEARCH DESIGN
3.3 STUDY POPULATION
3.4 SAMPLE AND SAMPLING TECHNIQUE
3.5 DATA FOR THE STUDY: INSTRUMENTATION
3.5.1 INSTRUMENTATION
3.5.2 VALIDITY OF INSTRUMENT
3.6 METHOD OF DATA ANALYSIS
CHAPTER FOUR
4.0 DATA PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION
4.1 INTRODUCTION
4.2 DATA ANALYSIS (QUESTIONNAIRE)
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
5.1 SUMMARY OF FINDINGS
5.2 CONCLUSION
5.3 RECOMMENDATION
REFERENCES
QUESTIONNAIRE
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Road conditions are an important factor in determining transport costs and prices. Hine and Ellis (2001) in comparing transport price to road roughness in Nigeria, illustrated that transport price was twice as high on a poor-quality earth road in comparison to transport price on a good-quality gravel road. A survey conducted in Nigeria found that, over a 50 km section of road, an increase in roughness of 50% would increase truck charges by 16% and increase pickup (light duty truck) charges by about twice as much (Ninnin, 1997 as cited in Hine & Ellis, 2001). The situation becomes worse during the wet season.
The African Development Bank has recognized that investment in infrastructure such as transport, power supply and telecommunication is important for supporting economic growth, reducing poverty and achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) (Kandiero, 2009). At a macro level, infrastructure investment allows for better private sector activities through lowering production cost, opening up new markets for goods and services and supporting trade (Kandiero, 2009). Road infrastructure improvements, for example, can be expected to raise the output price of the producers and lower production cost through the reduced transportation cost of goods and services (Kiprono & Matsumoto, 2014).
Poor transport infrastructure, high transport cost and missing links in the transport network pose a challenge for market integration and intra-
African trade. The level of transport infrastructure development in African countries is still low; only 30% of the rural population have access to all-weather roads (Kandiero, 2009). Transport prices in Africa are estimated to be twice as high as those of South and East Asia (Kandiero, 2009).
Despite the importance of infrastructure for economic growth in African countries, investment in infrastructures such as transport, power supply and telecommunication account for only 2 – 3% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (Kandiero, 2009). Comparing this to China, for instance, during the period 1996 –2005, infrastructure investment was on average 7.78% of its GDP. This investment was believed to spur a large part of its growth (Davis, 2008). In many African countries, the agricultural sector is important for economic growth.
In rural areas, among the strategies often adapted to stimulate agricultural development is the provision of proper and adequate transport. Crossley et al. (2009) state that transport is a basic component of the agricultural sector; it provides assurance for the supply of the agricultural inputs and facilitates the delivery of the farm outputs to the market. Improvement of the rural roads and transport services are essential to ensure a price reduction for agricultural inputs, improvement of market access for agricultural produce, and improvement of access to agricultural extension services.
Agricultural Policies are the instruments of action that governments employ to effect a change within the agricultural sector. Handcock (2012) stated that government’s agricultural policy is a set of decisions and actions relating to domestic agriculture and imports of foreign agricultural products. Governments usually implement agricultural policies with the goal of achieving a specific outcome in the domestic agricultural markets; some of which includes risk management and adjustment (including policies related to climate change, food safety and natural disasters), economic stability (including policies related to taxes), natural resources, and environmental sustainability (especially water supply policy),research and development; and market access for domestic commodities (including relations with global organizations and agreements with other countries).
Hancock further explained that Policy programmes can range from financial programmes, in the forms of taxation, subsidies, tariffs and other measures, sometimes meant to encourage producers to enroll in voluntary quality assurance programmes. Government policy, as described by Richard (2002), may have a direct or indirect effect on the prevalent agricultural system through increasing productivity and ensuring regular food supply in the country, improving farmers’ standards of living, stabilizing market prices at a level beneficial to farmers and reasonable for consumers through the instrument of price support policies. Some of these policies have bearing on distribution of agricultural products.
Roads and transportation are essential for the sustainability of agricultural production in Sub-Saharan Africa as it impacts positively factors such as mobility (John & Carapetis, 1991), the adoption of high yielding varieties, high productivity crops and bigger farm size (Sieber, 1999).
A transportation mode is the means of mobility used to carry goods and persons from one place to another in this case from village/market to farm and vice versa. Rural transportation mostly include animal traction, car, truck, train and other intermediary means of transport (IMT) such as motorcycle, bicycle, boat and canoe mostly adapted for local transport problems with low and medium loads (Sieber, 1999). Intermediary modes of transportation (IMT) are crucial to farmers’ timely access to farm, markets and agro-services though the level of adoption may not be unconnected with availability of quality road (Oyatoye, 1994).
Research concerns would be to address policy issues susceptible to improve farmer’s mobility and rural accessibility while enhancing farm livelihood assets and reducing rural poverty (Davis, 2000). Starkey (2001) noted a low adoption of IMT in rural Africa compared to the rest of the developing world and sees this as a constraint to rural development. (Ahmed & Rustagi, 1987) further noted that crops remain un-harvested or become spoilt once harvested because of unavailability of vehicles during harvesting.
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Transportation of agricultural products from the site of production to the point of distribution and sales has been one of the major challenges faced by farmers. Some of the transportation constraints on agricultural productivity include bad road, poor transportation facilities, unavailability of financial capacity to procure a transportation system, etc.
Greater thrust is laid on the problems of marketing. If the marketing facilities are developed; it gives signals to increase production and thereby ensures the availability of agricultural goods and services both locally and internationally. To distribute the surplus agricultural products, the marketing facilities have to be strengthened through provision and upgrading, right from the center of production to place of market.
Despite the agrarian nature of Taraba state, with about seventy-five percent (75%) of the population engaged in farming various forms of agricultural products such as rice, groundnuts, beans, cocoa, coffee, cattle, millet, cotton, tea, timber, bananas, yams, cassava, tomatoes, maize, sheep and goats, among others, (Taraba state Ministry of Information, Culture, & Tourism, 2012), the distribution systems have been observed to be very inefficient and ineffective; products are damaged either in the field or on transit, high cost of goods, delay in goods reaching places of use or markets, or some goods not spread at all throughout the state and even beyond. The absence of good infrastructure causes significant loss of earnings on the local producers and deprives them of capital for reinvestment and acquisition of machines for project expansion. Infrastructural deficiencies create high scarcity and cost of agricultural products borne by end-users in needed places of the state. Tracey-White (2005) noted also that mobility in rural areas could be hampered by the lack of transportation facilities and unavailability of good roads. He canvasses the need to study how transport systems affect the marketing channels and therefore the long term agricultural productivity. He noted that the mode of transportation used, length and time of the journey and the costs of transport all affect the efficiency of marketing system and therefore farm output.
1.3 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The general objective of this study is to examine transportation constraints on agricultural productivity. The specific objectives include the following:
1. To ascertain if bad road is a transportation constraint on agricultural productivity.
2. To find out if lack of transport facilities is a transportatio