IMPACT OF ROAD NETWORK IN THE TRANSPORTATION OF AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS

ABSTRACT

This study was designed to assess Impact of road network in the transportation of agricultural products. The cross-section survey research design was adopted in this research work. Purposive sampling was used to select 4 rural communities while questionnaires were used to collect data from 200 farmer households by means of simple probability sampling technique. Data collection was based on primary sources with a 100 percent response rate. Descriptive statistics technique such as percentages, frequencies, means and chi square was used to highlight the socio-economic characteristics of the farmers in the study area. The SPSS package aided in the analysis of the data. The result revealed that almost all the respondents agreed that road networks play a vital role in marketing of agricultural produces. It also showed that road networks create market for agricultural produces so improving road condition allows for better access to a wider market and reduce losses and delays in moving the farm produce. Again, nature of road network affects the cost of transporting agricultural produce to the market centres and hence influences the prices of produce. Also, another impact of road network on the marketing of agricultural produce is that effective and efficient road network increases the availability of agricultural produce in the market. Most of the road networks linking the various communities to the main market were unpaved and immotorable during the rainy season. Farming in the district was characterized by farmers who owned small portions of farm size and used rudimentary methods of agriculture. The study revealed that, the type of road connecting the communities to the market had a significant relationship with the estimated travel time, cost of transportation, where farmers sold their farm produce. It did not however find a statistically significant influence of road transport infrastructure on farm size of the farmers in Etche LGA. The study recommended that as Nigeria is fighting to abolish extreme poverty and hunger which is one of the objectives of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), the government should help in the construction of the road network connecting this communities so they can produce more and make food available in the market