Abstract
Accepted 26th July, 2016
The study was carried out in Akure, Ondo state, Nigeria to analyze the economic factors affecting cowhide (ponmo) marketing. The cowhide (ponmo) marketers were interviewed with the aid of well-structured questionnaire supplemented with oral interview schedule to obtain necessary and detailed information from the respondent. Five markets were purposively selected and used for the survey. Data were collected from one hundred and sixty respondents through purposive sampling in the study area. The findings revealed that majority (87.5%) of the respondents were female; 48.8% were between the ages of 31-40 years; 63.8% were married while 72.5% of the respondents were secondary school leavers deriving their means of livelihood from cowhide marketing. The analysis revealed that the gross margin per seller was N25, 162.50 and benefit-cost ratio of 4:1 while the regression analysis revealed that age, numbers of years spent in school, years of cowhide marketing experience, cost of raw cowhide purchase, shop rentage, cost of labour as well as cost of transportation were all significant at 5% level. Ponmo has now become a staple food for consumption and is been demanded everywhere within the country hence has become a very lucrative business. It is therefore concluded that ponmo or cowhide marketing has the potential to create job among the citizens of the nation thereby reducing the poverty status of many homes. It is therefore recommended among others that the cowhide marketers/sellers should be encouraged to form themselves into cooperative societies so that they may be able to enjoy government assistants from micro credit banks and access loan with minimum interest rate so that this could help improve their productivity.
Key words: Economic, Analysis, Factors, Marketing and Cowhide.