April 2017 Vol. 5 No.4

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Ekele GE

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Original Research Article

Rural migration frame factor as a preference for labour availability in agricultural marketing in Benue State, Nigeria

Ekele, Garba Emmanuel

Department of Vocational Agriculture and Technology Education, Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi Benue State – Nigeria

E-mail: ekelegarba@gmail.com

Accepted April 03, 2017

Abstract

The study investigated rural migration frame factor as a preference for labour availability in agricultural marketing in Benue state. Four research questions and one hypothesis guided the study. Sample survey research design was used for the study. The study was carried out in Benue State, Nigeria. The population of the study was 705 made up of 34 extension workers and 671 youth farmers. The sample for the study was 277 consisting of 243 farmers obtained via purposive sampling technique and all the 34 extension agents. A 34 item structured questionnaire titled ‘Rural migration and labour availability in Agricultural marketing questionnaire (RMLAMQ) was developed from literature and used for data collection. The instrument was subjected to face validation by three experts. Cronbach Alpha method was adopted to determine the internal consistency of the questionnaire items which yielded a coefficient of 0.73 The questionnaires were analyzed using mean to answer the research questions and t-test statistics to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The result of the study revealed that respondents agreed to most of the advertising procedures for marketing agricultural produce, functions of labour in agricultural marketing, remedial measures for improving agricultural marketing and challenges confronting agricultural marketing in Benue State, Nigeria. It was recommended amongst others that stake holders should train rural youths/farmers on basic functions of marketing agricultural produce in order to boost the supply and availability of labour.

Keywords: Rural migration, labour availability, agricultural marketing.