Structure of date palm marketers in Jigawa State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study examined the market concentration of date palm marketers in Jigawa State, Nigeria. Purposive sampling was employed due to high number of date palm marketers in the area and a total of 122 respondents were selected randomly. The Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI), Gini-coefficient and Four-firm concentration ratios (CR4) were employed for the study. The HHI revealed market concentrations of 0.05 for Shuwarin, Babaldu (0.04), Gujungu (0.05), Maigatari (0.09), Hadejia (0.08), and Kazaure (0.13) which indicates low concentrations, while Gumel and Gwaram each had a market concentration of 0.25. The HHI revealed market concentration of 0.33 for Babaldu, Gumel (0.56) and Kazaure (0.50) had high concentrations and Maigatari market was moderately concentrated and Shuwarin (0.14) market had low concentration for Wholesalers. The Gini-coefficient index of 0.66 indicates high concentration with total revenue of ₦17, 224, 950 generated by retailers while total revenue generated by wholesalers was ₦19,843,500 with a Gini coefficient of 0.67 (high concentration) and marketing played by only about 16.7% of wholesalers. Retailers in Shuwarin, Babaldu, and Gujungu had low market concentrations of 20.55%, 19.92% and 28.16% respectively using the CR4, while Maigatari, Gumel and Hadejia were moderately concentrated market concentrations of 41.91%, 41.74% and 41.74% respectively and Kazaure market had high concentration with CR4 of 53.81% for retailer. Only Shuwarin market was computable for wholesalers with a CR4 of 58.36% which is a high concentration. It was concluded that retailers’ income tends towards perfect competition while wholesalers had monopolistic competition based on HHI, while the Gini-coefficient portrays monopolistic competition for both retailers and wholesaler and the CR4 shows equality in the income of retailers while there is income inequality in the income of wholesalers.