Profitability and Marketing Efficiency of Smoked Fish: An Empirical Evidence from Ondo State, Nigeria

The level of efficiency and profitability of the market and marketing functions are very important for sustainable marketing of agricultural products like fish. To ensure continuous availability of fish for human consumption, nutrition, and wellbeing, the Nigerian economy requires effective and efficient marketing systems. Fish marketing serves as a medium for bridging the gap between producers and consumers of fish. The study considers 80 fish marketers from Ondo state using purposive sampling technique. The data collected for the study were analysed using budgetary technique and shepherd efficiency model. The study revealed that fish marketing is profitable with gross margin of #38,101.36 and 15k as return on investment. The shepherd efficiency model revealed that fish marketing activities among fish marketers is highly efficient with efficiency value far higher (558.0%) than 100% deducing that an increase in the cost of performing marketing service (that is added time, form and place utility) by 100 percent will give a more than proportionate increase of 458.0 percent in the level of satisfaction derived from a kilogram of fish sold in the market. It was recommended that government should focus on policy that encourages farmers and young graduates in the business as it is noted for profitability, efficiency and a source of livelihood.

As a result of the foregoing, efficient fish marketing is important when distance distribution is necessitated, top quality, maximum yield and highest possible profits are to be achieved in the market (Davies and Davies, 2009). The questions that readily come to mind are: what are the socio-economic characteristics of the smoked fish marketers? What are the costs and returns involved in smoked fish marketing? What is the marketing efficiency of smoked fish in the area of study? It is against this background that this study investigated smoked fish marketing in Ondo state. Specifically, the study described the socio-economic characteristics of smoked fish marketers; determined the profitability and marketing efficiency of smoked fish in Ondo state.

Methodology 2.1 The study area, Sampling Technique and Data Collection
This study was carried out in Ondo-State, located within the southwest Nigeria. The major occupation of the people is farming particularly fish farming as well as other agricultural related activities along with trading and craft specialization.
Multistage sampling method was used to select eighty (80) marketers, by purposively selecting Lagos state in the first stage follow by the purposive selection of Ibeju Lekki local government in the second statge, purposively selecting Orimedu and Otto community in the third stage and the fourth stage involve the selection of marketers using snowball sampling. A primary source of data was employed in the course of this study. This was done by the use of well-structured questionnaire. Also open discussion, interview as well as physical observation were used to complement the data for accuracy and reliability.

Analytical techniques
The data obtained from the respondents were subjected to descriptive and inferential statistical. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the socio-economic characteristics while inferential statistics such as budgetary technique was employed to ascertain the profitability of fish marketing and shepherd index was used to determine the marketing efficiency of fish marketing in the study area.

Model Specification
The budgetary technique encompasses the analyses of the gross margin which involves the cost and return analysis of fish marketing in the study area. The gross margin formula is explicitly stated below: The budgetary technique involves the cost and return analysis of fish marketing in the study area. It is explicitly stated as: G.M = ⅀(PijQij -rijXij) Pij = Price of fish in i th for j th respondent. Qij = Quantity of fish in i th for j th respondent. rij = Price of Variable Input in i th for j th respondent. Xij = Quantity of Variable Input in i th for j th respondent. The profitability and efficiency ratio was calculated as follows: Profitability ratio is given as: Efficiency ratio is given as: 38 The Shepherd efficiency model developed by Shepherd, (1965) was used by Massoud and Gowda, (2012) to analyze the marketing efficiency of fish marketing by estimating as follows: Marketing cost: The total marketing cost was determined by the following formula:

Socio-Economic Characteristics
The socio-economic characteristics of the respondent are presented in Table 1. The result shows that majority 91.25% of the respondents fell within the age bracket of 21 and50. This age bracket would favour fish marketing activities because the respondents would have enough strength to carry out fish marketing activities. The result of this study is in line with the findings of Sain (2008) who reported that the majority of the fish marketers were in active middle age. The result of the gender distribution of the respondents shows that both sexes are involved in the marketing of fish. However, females are more prominent in fish marketing with 65%. This result corroborates the findings of Adeleke and Afolabi, (2012) that fresh fish market was dominated by females. The results of marital status in the Table 1 show that 63.75% of the respondent was married. This deduces that there will be access to family labour required for fish processing and marketing. The distribution of the respondents by educational status shows that majority of the fish marketers had acquired formal education. For instance 86% of the fish marketers had formal education. The high literacy level would positively influence the marketing activities as observed by Madugu and Edward (2011). However, the proportion of marketers with non-formal was 7.5%. The household size distribution of the respondents in the study area reveals that, 70% of the fish marketers were having between 1-5 members of household sizes. Meanwhile, the mean household size of marketers was 3.00 while the minimum and maximum were 1.60 and 6.00 respectively. This is an indication that there is less availability of family labour and family dependent between the marketers in the study area. Though, Unongo, (2010) concluded that family size is associated with the availability of timely labour where larger families are likely to be more effective. However, this study complements a similar study on fishing, that the lower the number of family dependent on marketers the better the market performance because less time is spent on family issues and more on marketing (Madugu and Edward, 2011).

Profitability Analysis
The measure of the cost and return analysis of the marketers in the study area was carried out using the budgetary technique. The result in Table 2 showed that the cost of purchase gulped up to 94.36% used by the fish marketers. The table revealed that a marketer earned an average revenue of ₦292,806.25 but incurred a total variable cost of ₦254,704.88 over the same period. This indicates that an average marketer earned ₦38,101.36 as gross margin per year suggesting that fish marketing is a profitable venture in the study area. It can also be deduced that though the total variable cost was high it is also observed that it's gross margin is also higher in the like comparison, suggesting too that sale of fish is profitable. The result of the profitability ratio or the return on investment was 0.15 indicating that for every ₦1.00 spent on fish marketing 15kobo is gained by the fish marketers in the study area.

Marketing Efficiency of Coastline Fish Marketing in Southwest Nigeria
Marketing efficiency is the proportion between net marketing margin and marketing costs expressed as a percentage. A ratio of 100% (or 1.0) shows efficient trading/marketing activities. It essentially shows a break-even point since the value addition (i.e. marketing cost) is equal to the net margin obtained as a result of the value addition. Marketing efficiency value below 100% is suggesting inefficiency; more is spent on value addition compared to the margin received after value addition.
Results in Table 3 show that, fish marketing activities among fish marketers were highly efficient since the efficiency value was far higher than 100% (558.0%) deducing that an increase in the cost of performing marketing service (that is added time, form and place utility) by 100 percent will give a more than proportionate increase of 458.0 percent in the level of satisfaction derived from a kilogram of fish sold in the market.

Conclusion
Based on the findings of this study, it could be concluded that, fish marketing is a profitable and efficient venture. Therefore, farmers and young graduate should be encouraged to venture into the business which would help reduce the menace of unemployment among young educated Nigerians.