Abstract

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Farmers’ participation to agricultural business is a prerequisite for their sustainability. Encouraging sesame producers to market participation has the potential to facilitate poverty alleviation by transforming subsistence agriculture to commercial agriculture as well as unlock the well known benefits of trade. This Study was therefore undertaken to analyze factors influencing market participation among sesame producers using binary regression. A combination of purposive and random sampling techniques was used for sample selection. Data were obtained through the use of a structured questionnaire, copies of which were administered to the selected 372 sesame farmers in Benue State. The result indicated that Cox&Snell (R square) is 0.57 implying that sex; age; marital status; household size; education; farming experience; size of farm; output and market information accounted for 57 percent factors influencing market participation by sesame farmers in Benue State, Nigeria. The result further indicated that education; size of farm and output were factors that influence market participation by sesame farmers as well as lack of information (19.95%); Seasonality (18.10%); poor storage facilities (17.52%); cost of transportation (13.70%); High taxes (12.14%); Distance to market (9.60%) and bad road (8.96%) were constraints faced by sesame producers. It was recommended that sesame producers should be properly informed on the market price through media and this will be achieved by setting a price control and also investment on physical infrastructure (road network, warehouse, etc….) should be done in remote areas.

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