Abstract

In Northern Ghana, local leafy vegetables marketing has become an important trade in Ghana due to the increasing application of the health benefits from consuming local leafy vegetable. It was theorized that marketing margins (temporal arbitrage) may not encourage marketing agents to undertake and facilitate trade in the local leafy vegetable marketing chain. This hypothesis is investigated by using data collected from 80 traders randomly sampled from three markets in the Tamale Metropolis. The major marketing channels identified are from farmers to wholesalers through retailers to the final consumers. The sale of leafy vegetables directly from farmers to consumers and food vendors were also recorded. Despite incurring higher marketing cost, wholesalers had higher net returns (GH₵74 per 146 kg and GH₵73 per 10 kg per week in the dry and wet seasons respectively) than retailers (who had GH₵29 per 70 kg and GH₵9 per 55 kg per week respectively in the dry and wet seasons). Though the marketing of local leafy vegetables in the study area was inefficient, the benefit-cost ratio showed that, it is profitable. The authors recommend that, farmers and traders should form co-operatives to enable them bargain for prices, obtain loans and purchase storage facilities as groups. Also, fundamental problems of perishability among traders must be addressed.

Key words: Local leafy vegetables, wet season, dry season, marketing margins, net returns, marketing efficiency and Tamale Metropolis.