The factors affecting marketing of fresh fruits and vegetables in Idudi market, Bugweri district.

Abstract

Marketing of vegetables plays a critical role in meeting the overall goals of sustainable agriculture, food security and poverty alleviation, particularly among small-scale trades in rural areas. The study was conducted to assess factors which affect marketing of fresh fruits and vegetables in idudi market. Based on the findings, this implies that fruits and vegetable marketing is affected by prominent constraints like price, lack of enough capital, high taxes, infrastructure facility factors, middlemen, and education and training, lack of access to credit, lack of access to storage facilities, lack of market information, lack of finance, poorly developed village markets, poor producer prices, high perishability of produce, low patronage, inadequate access roads, small size of transport and high transportation costs. The results of the study also indicated that, price, infrastructure, middlemen, market information, and education and training factors significantly affect vegetable marketing in the study area. It further found that price has high significant effect on fruits and vegetable marketing followed by infrastructure factors, market information, middlemen, and education and training factors respectively. The results of the study implied that responsible bodies and the regional government should protect fruits and vegetable traders from exploitations from middlemen.