Published in Scientific Papers. Series "Management, Economic Engineering in Agriculture and rural development", Vol. 18 ISSUE 3
Written by Yakubu DAUNA, Shuaibu Iliya MSHELIA, Sikiru Adekunle OLAYIWOLA

Many factors such as poor transportation, inadequate capital and credit facilities, problem of supply, the magnitudes and multiplicity of fees arising from market operations and change in climate amounts to price instability which is quite threatening, as participant in rice marketing stand the danger of crashing in their investment if price fall. The study was conducted to predict the future price of paddy rice and described the problems militating against rice marketing. Data were collected from 204 rice marketers using multi stage sampling approach. Markov chain Techniques and simple statistical measures such as tables, means, frequencies and percentages were employed as tools for data analysis. The Markov chain result predicted 2% of the retailers to sell at a price of ≤ N4500, 4% to sell at prices between N4501 to N6500 and 94% to sell at prices above N6500 per 100kg bag in distant future. While, in the wholesale category 20% would sell at ≤ N4500, 60% would sell at prices between N4501 to N6500 and 20% would sell a 100kg bag of paddy rice at prices above N6500. The study recommends the state and non-governmental organizations to establish a broad common base of information for all economic agents involved in rice marketing chain. This will help policy makers to monitor marketing issues which are paramount in evaluating the outcome of agricultural price policies. The state should reconstruct rural roads for easy transfer of agricultural inputs and good. Financial support and formation of unions would enable the marketers benefit from large scale operation. These will stabilize prices and guarantee adequate returns hence, improved standard of living.

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