Abstract

The utmost barrier to agricultural production in Nigeria is not absence of recommended practices, but inability of service providers to transmit relevant technologies through information channels available and adaptable to the local situations of end-users. This study therefore assessed agricultural marketing information transmission channels to smallholder arable crop farmers in Imo State, Nigeria. Specifically, it identified agencies responsible for the transmission of marketing information, available channels and respondents’ perceived benefits of information transmitted in the study area. Primary data were used in this analysis. A multi-stage sampling procedure was employed in the simple random sampling of 612 respondents in Imo State. Collected data were analysed using frequency counts, percentages and mean scores, while Spearman rho Correlation analysis was used to make inferences. Results showed that fellow farmers (99.5%) was prominent among other marketing information transmission agents. Extension/market visits (95.8%), newspaper (69.8%) and GSM/Telephone (90.0%) were the most available oral and print channels respectively. Respondents perceived that “when to plant crops” with total mean (= 3.26), fertilizer recommendation ( = 2.97) and quantity of produce to sell ( = 3.06) among other value chain components, were the most beneficial information across the three agroecological zones of the State. It was therefore recommended that farmers should be involved at all stages of marketing information generation and transmission processes to ensure that relevant information are transmitted to target users  through the available channels in the area.

Key Words: Arable crop, Smallholder, Marketing information, Transmission channels