Bananas and Food Security - Bioversity International

494 Les productions bananières / Bananas and food security – Session 3
Table 8. Marketing margin (Naira) of cooking banana and plantain per bunch per
unit purchase price.
Bunch size Marketing margin per bunch Marketing margin per Naira
Cooking banana Plantain Cooking banana Plantain
Small 21.0 30.7 0.66 0.49
Medium 25.5 38.3 0.41 0.38
Big 36.3 44.8 0.29 0.24
Average 27.6 37.9 0.45 0.37
Table 9. Price (Naira) of cooking banana and plantain per unit weight (kg).
Statistics Cooking banana Plantain
weight (kg) price (N/kg) weight (kg) price (N/kg)
Mean 16.3 6.5 10.1 13.3
Maximum 38.0 16.1 20.8 24.2
Minimum 5.6 2.2 4.2 6.0
Standard deviation 7.4 3.2 4.4 5.2
Coefficient of variation 45.4 48.9 43.7 39.1
Number of observations 40.0 40.0 35.0 34.0
Cooking banana production
and market pressure
This section examines the relationship between market pressure factors and the
production of cooking banana. Two groups of two market factors each are considered for
the analysis. The first group includes farmers selling mostly to wholesalers and those
selling mostly to consumers whereas the second group comprises farmers selling mostly
to retailers and those having consumers as major buyers. The hypothesis tested is that
the greater the quantity bought (sold) per unit time, the greater the likelihood that the
farmer will increase production of cooking banana.
The t-test was used to compare the number of cooking banana mats planted by the
farmers within each group. The results of the study indicate that the number of cooking
banana mats planted by farmers selling mostly to wholesalers is statistically higher than
that planted by farmers selling mostly to consumers (Table 10). Wholesalers buy in bulk
great quantity of cooking bananas; this may constitute an incentive for farmers to
increase their production of cooking banana. The average number of cooking banana
mats planted by farmers selling to retailers is higher, though not statistically significant,
than that of farmers selling mostly to consumers. It may be concluded that the greater
the quantity of cooking banana sold by farmers, the more they tend to increase the
number of cooking banana mats in their fields.