Structure of soyabeans markets in Benue and Enugu States, Nigeria

The importance of agricultural marketing in national development cannot be over-emphasized. The study examined the structure of soyabeans markets in Benue and Enugu States, Nigeria. Primary data were collected using questionnaire admininstered to 207 marketers. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, regression model, HHI, Gini coefficient and lorenz curve. The result showed that the major determinants of soyabeans marketed were price of soyabeans, transfer and handling costs, education and quantity of credit. The study also found that Benue soyabeans markets were by dominated rural assemblers while they were not found in Enugu markets. Soyabeans markets were characterized by many buyers and sellers with little or no barrier to entry and exit. However, the seeds were homogenous. High values of HHI (2,017.18 and 1,081.97) and gini coefficient (0.84 and 0.81) were got for wholesalers and retailers implying high concentration of sales in the hands of few wholesalers and retailers. Soyabeans marketing did not exhibit competitive market behaviour. Education of marketers, provision of credit facilities as well as construction and rehabilitation of roads should be carried out. Increased household utilization could improve the competitiveness of soyabeans markets. Again, MIS should be established for better dissemination of information and improved decision making.


INTRODUCTION
A good and efficient marketing system accelerates the pace of economic development by encouraging specializations which leads to increase in output.Olayemi (1982) observed that food marketing is a very important but rather neglected aspect of agricultural development.More emphasis is usually placed by government on policies that increase food production with little or no consideration on how to distribute the food produced efficiently and in a manner that will enhance productivity.Moreso, a good and well-coordinated national food marketing system can affect food production and household's food security in two ways.One, it can stimulate increased commercial activities that could generate more funds for plough back investments in both agricultural and agro-allied industrial sectors.The resultant increased agricultural production will lead to *Corresponding author.E-mail: doranonye@yahoo.com,dorothyugodu@uam.edu.ngAuthor(s) agree that this article remains permanently open access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 International License increased food production and increased food output.Secondly, it can lead to employment generation for both food distributors and rural farmers.The involvement of rural people in food marketing could uplift the rural populace's standard of living and increase their personal income thereby enhancing the prospect of food security at the household, local and national levels.
Soyabean (Glycine max), a herbaceous annual food legume, is an important food, feed, oil and cash crop in the world.It has been the dominant oilseed produced since the 1960s and is used as human food, livestock feed, and for various industrial purposes (Myaka et al., 2005).Its industrial uses range from the manufacture of edible oil, infant food supplements, pharmaceutical, paints, cosmetics, soap-making to animal feeds (Singh et al., 1987).Available research has shown that greater demand for soyabeans comes from livestock industry for the manufacture of livestock feeds (Omotayo et al., 2007).
Market structure can be defined as those characteristics of the organisation of a market which seem to influence strategically the nature of competition and pricing within the market (Olukosi et al., 2005).According to them, the factors considered important in determining market structure are: 1.The number and relative size of buyers and sellers 2. The degree of product differentiation 3. The ease of entry of buyers and sellers into and out of the market 4. The status of knowledge about costs, prices and market conditions among the participants in the market The number and conduct of competitors define the market structure and the firms'relative success in the market is measured by its market share (Nwokoye, 1996).Market structure relates essentially to the degree of competition in a market.It tends to consider whether the number of firms producing a product is large or whether the firms are of equal sizes dominated by a small group.It is also concerned with whether entry for new firms is easy or difficult and whether the purchases of the product is in a competitive state or not.Structure also relates to the degree of market knowledge which is available to these firms.
The complexity of agricultural marketing system increases when a large number of small farmers, dispersed all over the country have diverse production practices.Hays (1976) found that the food grain marketing system encourages the participation of a large number of individuals at the various types of markets and exchange points, where the marketing services of assembly, storage and transportation and breaking of bulk are performed.Furthermore, Onu and Iliyasu (2008), in their study titled 'Economic Analysis of Food Grain Market in Adamawa State, Nigeria, found that there were six categories of food grain traders in the markets, namely: the farmers, assemblers, wholesalers, retailers, speculators and the processors.
The proportions of their sampled market participants showed that wholesalers and retailers were the two most dominant groups in the markets surveyed.The smallest category, they found was the assemblers/collectors.Similarly, Babatunde and Oyatoye (2000) in their work titled "Food Security and Marketing in Nigeria: The case of maize marketing in Kwara State noted that a typical food market in the State is generally localized and consists of numerous independent small-scale farmers and itinerate retailers who buy from farm gate usually lacking the wherewithal to continue the marketing functions further, re-sell the food produce at the nearest market place.Furthermore, a study by Omotayo et al. (2007) shows that the commodity chain for soyabeans marketing shows that middlemen play a significant role in the distribution of soyabeans from farmers' field (the primary markets) to the processors.Two categories of middlemen were identified by them.They included those who bought directly from farmers, re-bagged, stored and transported to the feeder and central markets; and those who bought from these feeder and central markets and supplied to industrial processors.These middlemen play significant roles in meeting the demand for soyabased products by different levels of processors.
Soyabeans, although consumed in few homes, is mainly produced for local and international markets.Most farmers do not produce this crop because of their inability to identify markets.While production has sustainably increased in some States, there is no information whether it is being marketed efficiently since its industrial demand far outweighs its domestic household demand.According to Omotayo et al. (2007), unlike the marketing of other food crops in Nigeria, the soyabeans marketing chain appear simple but fragmented; it would seem that the business is in the hands of various middlemen who dictate local prices of soya grains and other soya based raw materials.And the local price of soyabeans tend to follow international trend adjusted for foreign exchange rate fluctuations.With the available evidence of increased soyabeans production in Nigeria in recent times as a result of increased general awareness of its ecomomic importance and government efforts through different agencies (FMAWRD, 2006), there is therefore a need to examine how this important crop is being marketed.Thus, the objectives of the study were to: 1. Identify the determinants of the volume of soyabeans marketed; 2. Examined the structure of the soyabeans market.

The study area
The study area is Benue and Enugu States of Nigeria.These   (1998) and William (2008), the predominant occupation of the people of Benue and Enugu States is farming.Marketing of all food stuffs especially farm produce are extensively carried out in several markets in the two States.

Sampling procedure
A two-stage sampling technique was adopted in selecting the respondents.First, from the two selected States, four markets each were purposively selected based on the relative predominant availability of soyabeans in the area.The markets surveyed in Benue include Wannune, Lessel, Gbajimgba and NorthBank whereas Orie Orba, Ogbete, Eke Agbani and Orie Awgu were sampled in Enugu State.Subsequently, from each of the selected soyabeans markets, a minimum of 20 middlemen (wholesalers, retailers and rural assemblers) were selected using simple random sampling technique; although rural assemblers were not found in Enugu markets.Thus, a total of 97 and 110 respondents were sampled in Enugu and Benue markets, respectively which summed up to 207.

Data collection
The study made use of primary data.Primary data were obtained mainly through the use of structured questionaire administered to soyabeans marketers.

Data analysis
Data were analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics.OLS regression analysis was used to realise Objective I. Objective II was achieved using Herfindahl Hirschman Index (HHI), Gini coefficient model and Lorenze curve.

Regression analysis
Regression model was used to ascertain the factors that determined the volume of soyabeans marketed.The implicit form of the regression model was specified as: In this study, transfer cost included transportation costs and produce while loading, offloading, revenue, LG fees and storage costs constituted handling cost.Different functional forms (linear, semi-log, double log and exponential) were fitted and the lead equation was chosen based on the conformity of the explanatory variables with the aprior expectation with respect to signs of the parameter estimates, magnitude of adjusted and overall significance of the model as indicated by the F-value.

Herfindahl Hirschman Index (HHI) for market concentration
HHI is expressed as follows: HHI = Where: HHI= Herfindahl Hirschman Index; n= Total number of marketers in the industry, and Pi= total market shares of those m largest soyabeans traders expressed in percentage.
This was computed by dividing the total volume of soyabeans sales of the biggest traders by the total volume of soyabeans sale of all sellers in the industry.An advantage of HHI is that it can be used to measure changes in the market shares because it takes into account all firms in the market (Sayaka, 2006).
The HHI can have a theoretical value ranging from close to zero to 10,000.If there exists only a single market participant which has 100% of the market share the HHI would be 10,000.If there were a great number of market participants with each company having a market share of almost 0% then, the HHI could be close to zero.The US Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice Anti-Trust Division uses the following rule of thumbs: When the HHI value is less than 100, the market is highly competitive; when the HHI value is between 100 and 1000, the market is said to be not concentrated and when the HHI value is between 1000 and 1800, the market is said to be moderately concentrated.However, when the HHI value is above 1800, the market is said to be highly concentrated.

Gini coefficient
Gini coefficient was calculated using the formula below as used by Enete and Agbugba (2008)  Mathemetically, it is expressed as one minus the sum of the product of the proportion of market participants and the cumulative proportion of their sales earnings arranged in class intervals from the lowest to the highest (Ike and Chukwuji, 2005).The value ranges from 0 to 1 with a value greater than 0.35 indicating inequality in distribution of sales as well as income earned according to Dillon and Hardaker (1993).

Determinants of the volume of soyabeans marketed
The results of the regression showing the factors that determine volume of soyabeans marketed were presented in Table 1.The equation of 'best fit' was selected with conformity to a priori economic criteria of the magnitude of the coefficients, magnitude of the standard error, signs and significance of the coefficient of multiple determination, F-ratio and t-ratio.Here, Cobb Douglas was selected as the lead equation because of its very minimal standard error, high F-value and high R

2
. The main objective of this section was to test for the significance of independent variables that influenced the volume of soyabeans marketed.Volume of soyabeans marketed as used here indicated the quantity of soyabeans the marketer bought at a given time.
The result showed the adjusted R 2 as 0.191 while R 2 was found as 0.211 implying that only 21% of the variations in the volume of soyabeans marketed were explained by variations in the independent variables.The low R 2 got in this model signified that outside the tested variables, some other variables which might be relevant in the regression model were inadvertently omitted for logistic reasons.The result indicated that prices of soyabeans, transfer and handling costs, number of years in education, and the amount of loan borrowed affected the volume of soyabeans marketed.This means that these factors were among the major determinants of volume of soyabeans marketed.In other words, an increase in level, quantity or quality of these variables with the exception of price increases the quantity of soyabeans marketed.
Furthermore, the result of the regression showed that price and volume of soyabeans marketed had an inverse relationship.This meant that as the price of soyabeans increased, the volume of soyabeans marketed decreased.This is in line with the law of demand that as price of a commodity increases, the quantity demanded decreases.From the result, one unit decrease in the price of soyabeans led to a 1.5 units increase in quantity marketed.When prices increase, marketers tend to withdraw from buying as they are not sure of the future price.This result agrees with the findings of Lokman and Hatemi-J (2005) who found stock price as one of the three dominant factors that had very close association with the trading volume in Indian stock market.Similar result was also obtained by Alper and Mehmet (2010) in Turkey.
Conversely, transfer and handling cost and volume of soyabeans marketed had a positive relationship which implied that as the transfer cost increases, the volume of soyabeans marketed also increases.A unit increase in transfer cost, translated to a 0.35 units increase in the volume of soyabeans marketed.This is as a result of the fact that the more quantity of soyabeans one has, the more expenditure one makes on handling and transportation.Similar result was obtained Zamasiya et al. (2014), who discovered that average distance to the market explained the intensity (amount of soyabeans sold) of smallholder farmers' participation in soyabeans market in Zimbabwe.In a similar manner, Sapna and Dani (2014), found out that transportation cost was among the three critical statistically significant factors that affect the volume of trade in Asian developing economies.Again, Onu and Iliyasu (2008), found that cost of storage facility and cost of transportation were significant factors that determined the volume of food grains marketed in Adamawa State, Nigeria.An increase in transportation brings about a maximum utilization of transport available by increasing the quantity of grains transported.
Similarly, years spent in education and volume of soyabeans market had a positive relationship implying that as one's education level increases, the level of soyabeans marketed also increases.People with higher educational status tends to be knowledgable, flexible and could easily manage large volume of trade.Significant education level as a determinant of the volume of soyabeans agreed with the findings of Onu and Iliyasu (2008) that education contributed to the volume of grains marketed.Moreso, the result corroborated the findings of Opata (2012) (University of Nigeria Nsukka, unpublished Ph.D thesis) that education influenced the volume of cocoyam marketed in South Eastern Nigeria.
Furthermore, the result showed that the quantity of loan contributes to the volume of soyabeans traded.From the result, a unit increase in the amount of loan borrowed led to 2.2 unit increase in the quantity of soyabeans marketed.This result could be likened to the findings of Zamasiya et al. (2014) that livestock wealth (cattle owned) explained the intensity (amount of soyabeans sold) of smallholder farmers' participation in Zimbabwe soyabeans market.Again, similar result was obtained by Onu and Iliyasu (2008) thereby reinforcing the fact that the quantity of loan obtained by marketers contributed to the volume of trade.However, marketing experience did not have any influence on the quantity of soyabeans marketed.This result contradicted the findings of Onu and Iliyasu (2008) that marketing experience contributed to the volume of grains marketed.This disparity could be as a result of little or no special skills required for soyabeans marketing compared to other food grains.

Structure of soyabeans market
Market structure is defined in terms of the organisation of a market which seems to influence strategically the nature of competition and pricing within the market (Bain, 1968).The dimensions of market structure evaluated in this study were ease of entry and exit, standards and grades, packaging, number of buyers and sellers, price information and setting, degree of wholesalers and retailers concentration, volume of trade and market shares of different participants.

Proportion of traders in the sampled markets
The result showing the proportion of traders in the sampled market was presented in Table 2.The result showed that in Lessel and Gbajimgba markets of Benue State, majority (66.7 and 69.8%) of the market participants were rural assemblers while in Wannune, majority (53.8%) were wholesalers.The presence of numerous rural assemblers in the producing State helped in facilitating the gathering/assembling of the produce for subsequent evacuation into the urban cities and factories.
However, in North Bank Makurdi, majority (65.0%) of the marketers were retailers with only about 35.0%wholesalers.This could be as a result of the location of the market in Makurdi town and being widely known as the grain market in Makurdi, many consumers went there to buy soyabeans.Conversely, in Orie Orba Udenu LGA of Enugu State, majority (66.7%) were wholesalers.The market, due to its proximity to the supply market, provides the eastern States with food grains from the north thereby acting as a link market.However, in Ogbete Enugu, Eke Agbani and Orie Awgu, 75.1, 80 and 77.3% were retailers who sold to final consumers and local processors.This could be because soyabeans had more of industrial demand with less of household demand as it is not heavily consumed like other grains.The few wholesalers (42.9, 20 and 22.7% respectively) in these markets sold to retailers, processing companies and feed mills.

Characteristics of soyabeans market
Table 3 presented the result of the characteristics of soyabeans markets in the study area.The survey indicated that whereas market union existed in some markets, they were absent in some especially in Benue markets (38.2%).The result showed that more than half of the sampled marketers (51.7%) belonged to market unions while 27.5% did not.However, only 15.5% from Benue markets were compelled to join the union, although majority (45.9%) were not under any compulsion to join.Furthermore, all the marketers (100%) agreed of their freedom to sell soyabeans anywhere; whereas only 96.1% had buying freedom; although in Enugu markets, buying freedom was generally reported (100%).Moreso, information among marketers were mostly obtained from middlemen (81.8 and 96.9%) in Benue and Enugu markets, respectively; although information were equally obtained from friends (1.4%), market union (4.3%) and company agents (5.3%).Moreso, prices of soyabeans were mainly determined by the forces of demand and supply through bargaining (100% in Enugu State and 77.3% in Benue State); although in Benue State markets, there were cases of prices being fixed by company agents (4.5%) and prices arranged with buyers (2.7%) and sometimes prices determined by individuals (0.9%).
The result also indicated that there were little or no restictions (94.2%) to entry and exit from the business; even though there were restrictions (5.8%) in some markets.These restrictions could be in form of booking before purchases were made and the existence of market unions in some markets.Another major characteristics of soyabeans market was the participation of many buyers and sellers with none dominating the market.Thus, soyabeans market did not exhibit the characteristics of monopoly but had features of near competitive market although in Benue State, there were traits of inefficiencies and uncompetitive market behaviour.
Different sizes of sacs were used to pack soyabeans.In major markets sampled in Benue State, the buyers used weighing machines while at other places, farmers were being exploited by the rural assemblers who used no standard measure (Figure 2).However, in Enugu State markets, soyabeans were sold in bags or measured in tins, paint buckets and cups.The sizes of the sacs in both markets could be 100 kg, 120 kg and even 130 kg or more.
Soyabean seeds had different grades.In Benue State, BNARDA seeds were of high quality, having big and fine seeds.However, there were other local varieties with smaller and wrinkled seeds.Generally, Benue State soyabean was the least preferred among soyabeans marketers and company agents interviewed because of its poor seed quality and the presence of stones and sand which were normally added by the rural assemblers to increase the weight.Among traders in Enugu State, the quality ranges from 01 (big seed) to 04 (smallest seed).Although these grades and colour exist, there was no significant difference in the quality of seeds hence soyabean seeds were homogenous.

Conditions of entry and exit from soyabeans markets
Barriers to entry into and exit from a given marketing system influence the structure of the marketing system.Booking before purchases at the northern soyabeans markets, the associated high initial capital and market skills could be the possible entry and exit barriers to soyabeans marketing in the study area.

Booking before purchases
Before a trader is allowed into the grain markets in the Ani et al. 441 northern States (Benue State inclusive), such a trader is expected to make an annual booking of between N800 and 1,500 to the market committee.Thereafter, the trader is issued with a number which appears on his bags as his identity in the market.Moreso, most wholesalers, retailers and rural assemblers join informal groups as a condition for starting the business.

Skills
Almost all the interviewed rural assemblers, wholesalers and retailers from all levels strictly underlined the importance of experience.The experience to buy at different times and months of the year, the skill of bargaining with the sellers, managing customers, preservation of soyabeans were needed to effectively function well in the business.Thus, the absence of these attributes could prevent people from entering the business.

Degree of concentration
The degree of wholesalers and retailers concentration was assessed using Herfindahl-Hirschman index (HHI).HHI is a more comprehensive measure of market concentration than four firm concentration ratio.The lower the HHI, the more spread out the market share with many firms whereas the higher the value, the more concentrated the market becomes.

Herfindahl Hirschman Index of wholesalers
The Herfindahl Hirschman Index (HHI) of wholesalers is presented in Appendix Table 1.It showed that the HHI value for 70 sampled wholesalers as 2,017.18.Thus, using the stated criteria for concentrated or spread out of the market share, the computed index was greater than 1,800 indicating that soyabeans market was concentrated, hence not competitive.The index accounted for the wholesaler with the largest market share (43.01 2 = 1,849.93)as well as wholesaler with the lowest market share (0.0043 2 = 0.0000185).This implied that few wholesalers can actually controlled the soyabeans market.This could be explained by the fact that soyabeans has more of industrial demand than household demand and the price was normally determined by soyabeans companies.Those that supplied to companies had larger volume of sales than those that did not.Contrary result was got by Opata (2012) who found HHI value of 193.98 for cocoyam wholesalers in South Eastern States of Nigeria even though the crops belonged to different classes of food.However, similar high HHI value (6,000) was obtained for agricultural sector (farming, fishing, and forestry) by U.S Bereau of Labour Statistics (2014).

Herfindahl Hirschman index of retailers
The Herfindahl Hirschman Index (HHI) of 82 sampled retailers was presented in Appendix Table 2.It showed HHI of 1,081.97.This index being between 1000 and 1800 indicated moderate concentration.The market share of the largest retailer had a HHI of 683.4978 (26.14379) 2 while that of the lowest retailer was 0.000684 (0.0261) 2 , with the sum of squares of the market share of all the retailers being 1,081.97.This calculated index being less than that of the wholesalers (Appendix Table 1) showed that retailers exercised less control over the market than wholesalers.Another major explanation for the moderate concentration found among retailers in the study area could be the difference in the demand for soyabeans in the two States.This result agrees with Domina and Taylor (2009) who found that the U.S. agricultural economy was highly concentrated in the hands of too few processors of major agricultural products.According to them, beef, chicken, pork, seed, and some grains markets; four or fewer firms dominated the market in such a way that competition was insufficient.However, high HHI value got for retailers disagreed with the findings of Opata (2012) who calculated HHI for cocoyam retailers in south eastern Nigeria as 196.69.

Herfindahl Hirschman Index of rural assemblers
Appendix Table 3 showed the Herfindahl Hirschman Index of the sampled rural assemblers.These category of middlemen (BRENDA) were only found in Benue State.From the result of the calculated HHI of 433.84 being between 100 and 1000, the market is said not to be concentrated.Therefore, the local assemblers exhibited competitive behaviour.The HHI of the highest market share rural assembler in the soyabeans market was (8.27586) 2 = 68.49while that of the lowest market share was (0.03448) 2 = 0.001189.Since some of the rural assemblers were soyabean farmers and wholesalers as well, they could easily gather soyabeans from nearby farms and sell to company agents and other wholesalers who could buy off whatever quantity they had.Again, their numerous number and the ease of entry explained the fierce competitive behaviour observed among rural assemblers.
Generally, from the HHI of 2,017.18,1,081.97 and 433.84, respectively, for wholesalers, retailers and rural assemblers; soyabeans marketing in the study area could be said to be neither monopolistic nor competitive but exhibited moderate concentration of market shares among wholesalers and retailers.This implied that few marketers could actually exert significant influence in the market price by controlling the volume of soyabeans traded.This difference in their volume of trade could be as a result of their differences in business capital.Moreso, few of them who were company agents were assisted with capital from processing companies that enabled them to buy in large quantity whereas others could only buy small quantity.This result suggested an uncompetitive and imperfect market which led to market inefficiency.

Gini coefficient for market participants
Gini coefficient was also used to measure variations in sales distribution among wholesalers, retailers and rural assemblers.The interpretation of Gini coefficient was based on Lorenz curve.The value ranges from 0 to 1 with a value greater than 0.35 indicating inequality in distribution of sales as well as income earned according to Dillon and Hardaker (1993).Higher Gini coefficient (GC) means higher level of concentration, inequitable distribution of sales and income and consequently, high inefficiency in the market structure.The result of Gini coefficient was presented in Table 4. Gini coefficient of wholesalers was calculated as 0.84.This value being higher than 0.35 implied high inequality in sales and income distribution among the wholesalers in the study area.This very high value of Gini coefficient implied that few wholesalers controlled large shares of soyabeans supply in the study area.This result corroborated the earlier result of very high HHI value in this study (Table 4).During the course of the study, it was found that few wholesalers especially company agents bought as much as one or more trailer loads of soyabeans at a given time while others bought few bags.These wholesalers who were company agents could influence supplies by increasing or decreasing the quantity marketed.In other words, few wholesalers' share were significant part of volume of trade in the market such that it could affect the market price which would invariably lead to market imperfection.
Similarly, among retailers in the study area, the value of Gini coefficient calculated from Table 4 was 0.81 (1-0.19).This equally showed great inequality in sales distribution among retailers surveyed.Among rural assemblers found only in Benue State, the value of Gini coefficient was 0.61.This implied high inequality in market shares and income distribution among this category of marketers.This meant that each of these traders could exert pressure on the market by influencing quantity and price.These high inequalities, 84, 81 and 61%, respectively, found for wholesalers, retailers and rural assemblers of soyabeans, however differed from the low values 36 and 24% for wholesalers and retailers, respectively found by Enete and Agbugba (2008) in charcoal marketing in Abia State.However, it corroborated the findings of Ike and Chukwuji (2005)  who got a value of 68% for cashew marketers in Enugu State.
Overall, the structure of soyabeans market indicated both small and large-scale dealers such that the market could be controlled by few marketers.This was caused probably by the nature of the commodity as its industrial demand outweighed its household demand.Hence, this type of market could be said to be uncompetitive because individual marketers especially company agents had great influence on the market price.This did not agree with the work of Enete (2003) in cassava marketing in Nigeria, Enete and Agbugba (2008) in Charcoal marketing in Abia State and Hayami et al. (1999) in rice marketing in Philippines.A high Gini coefficient of 0.68 was obtained by Ike and Chukwuji (2005) which implied that there was significant inequality in the distribution of income among the cashew nut sellers and hence, a high level of concentration.This agreed with the result of this study.
Furthermore, the proportions of sampled market participants showed that wholesalers and retailers were the two most dominant groups in the market surveyed.The smallest category was the rural assemblers although a small portion of them were wholesalers and farmers.This implied that there was vertical integration across the marketing chain in the study area thus agreeing with Fafchamps and Minten (2001).Similar result was obtained by Onu and Iliyasu (2008).

Lorenz curve
Lorenz curves were obtained from Table 4 and presented in Figure 1.The curves relate the cumulative proportion of total sales by wholesalers, retailers and rural assemblers to the cumulative proportion of the wholesalers, retailers and rural assemblers after ordering the population according to increasing levels of sales (Dillon and Hardaker, 1993).The 45° line [Egalitarian Line (EL)] represents the perfect equality of sales by households.If the distribution is totally equitable, the curve will fall on a 45-degree line (EL).The greater the  inequality, the greater the departure from the 45-degree line.The most common measure of income inequality that is based on the lorenz curve is the gini coefficient.Higher gini coefficient means higher level of concentration, inequitable distribution of sales and income consequently high inefficiency in the market structure.The lorenz curve of soyabeans wholesalers and retailers showed the greatest departure from the 45 degree line and this is consistent with the value of gini coefficient of 0.84 and 0.81 respectively.This implies high variations in the income and sales distribution of market participants.However, the lorenz curve for rural assemblers was found closer (0.61) to the 45° line of equality than wholesalers and retailers.Lorenz curve similar to that of rural assembler was obtained for retailers by Opata (2012) in marketing of cocoyam in South Eastern States of Nigeria.

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
This study assessed the market structure of soyabeans in Benue and Enugu States, Nigeria with a view to assisting the industry in contributing to social and economic developments in the area and in the country at large.Results also showed that although soyabeans provided cheap high protein, it had more aggregate industrial demand than household demand.The socio-economic characteristics of marketers were clear evident of their poor resource situations which constrained their competitiveness in the industry leading to economic losses.Prominent among the factors that contributed to the volume of soyabeans trade were prices of soyabeans, transfer costs, high educational status and the amount of loan received.In other words, their differences in the volume of trades could be accounted for by their differences in educational level and amount of loan borrowed.Therefore, an increase in the marketers' educational level, transfer costs and the amount of loan borrowed or capital base could increase their volume of trade and vice versa.The result also showed that soyabeans marketing did not exhibit competitive market behaviour but characterized by high concentration of sales by few wholesalers and retailers, unethical practices of cheating although the produce were homogenous and there was no barriers to entry and exit into the business.
Farmers and traders should be educated on the importance of soyabeans Increased awareness on the nutritional importance of soyabeans should be carried out by government agencies, private organisations, NGOs and foreign bodies.As a result of soyabeans high quality protein content, home scientists and Food Technologists should come up with different simple ways of utilizing soyabeans at the household level.Intense research should be carried out by different levels of governments especially in its household utilization.Government should deliberately establish specifically soyabeans food research and processing companies.These efforts will increase household demand thereby making soyabeans sub-sector to become competitive.
Credits should be given to marketers to increase their volume of participation in the business.Transportation problems could be addressed through provision of good roads and checkmating the activities of officers at road blocks to shield traders from multiple taxation.Moreso, Government should set up a market information system (MIS) in order to improve the availability and accessibility of market information.Better market information services would enable market agents to read price signals more accurately and promptly, and therefore to make more reliable price forecasts that would aid them in making States belong to the North-Central and South Eastern zones of the country, respectively.Benue State, created on 3 rd February, 1976, is located in the middle belt of Nigeria, approximately between latitudes 6°30ʹN and 8°10ʹN of the equator and longitudes 6°35ʹE and 8°10ʹE of the Greenwich meridian, at an elevation of 97 m, above sea level in the southern guinea savannah agroecological zone.It has a landmass of 6.595 million hectares [Benue State Agricultural and Rural Development Authority (BNARDA), 1998].Benue State has a total population of 4,219,244 (NPC, 2006), and is made up of 413,159 farm families (BNARDA, 1998 of experience (N), and e = error term.
in their work titled Charcoal Marketing in Abia State: Where, G = Gini index; X = marketing agents; Y = volume of trade; sales (volume of trade); n = number of observations, and K= n-1

Figure 2 .
Figure 2. Soyabeans being measured in mudu and basin without scale in Gbajimgba and Daudu markets.
). Benue State derives its name from the River Benue; the second largest river in Nigeria.The State is made up of 23 Local Government Areas and is divided into three agricultural zones.Enugu State was created on August 27, 1991, with the city of Enugu as its capital.Enugu State is located between latitudes 5°56ʹN and 7°6ʹN and longitudes 6°53ʹE and 7°55ʹE of Greenwich meridan [Enugu State Agricultural Development Project (ENADEP), 2009].The State occupies a landmass of approximately 8,022.95 km 2 and a population of 3,257,298 (NPC, 2006).It has 17 Local Government Areas and according to ENADEP (2012), the State is further divided into six agricultural zones.According to BNARDA

Table 1 .
Regression models showing the factors that determine the volume of soyabeans marketed.

Table 2 .
Proportion of traders in the sampled markets.

Table 4 .
Sales distribution and Gini coefficient for soyabeans marketers in Benue and Enugu States.

Table 3 .
The Herfindahl Hirschman index for rural assemblers.