ANALYSIS OF SHEEP AND GOATS MARKETING IN

The study examined the nature of sheep and goats marketing by determining the marketing margins, efficiencies and structures of sheep and goats marketing in Sokoto metropolis. Kara Market was purposively selected for the study. The selection of kara market was based on the high concentration of sheep and goat marketers in the market. Simple random sampling technique was used to select 10 % of the registered sheep and goats marketers giving a total of 81 respondents who were used for the study. A structured questionnaire was use to collect relevant information from the selected marketers. Data analyses were done using descriptive statistics, farm budgeting, measures of performance and Gini-coefficient. Results of the study showed that sheep marketers were faced with higher cost per head (N16, 637.04) and they obtained higher net profit per head (N5, 704.6). While goat marketing was faced with higher cost of marketing (N1, 261.29), on the one hand, it attracted higher marketing margin (N4, 6.60) and higher marketing efficiency (1.46), than the sheep. Although the two markets were oligopolistic in nature, Sheep market was found to be more concentrated (0.56) than goat market (0.49). Based on the results of the study, it was concluded that both sheep and goat marketing were profitable. However, while sheep marketing was more lucrative in terms of business turnover than goat, goat marketing was more stable and had more capacity to respond to competition in the market