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Snail Marketing as a Means of Rural Livelihood in Ondo, Nigeria

Snail marketing; Gini coefficient; Income inequality; Rural livelihood

This study was carried out to analyse marketing of snails as a means of rural livelihood in Ondo State, Nigeria. Data were collected from one hundred and twenty (120) snail marketers through a multistage sampling technique using a pre-tested questionnaire. Descriptive statistics, gross margin analysis, Gini coefficient and Lorenz curve were employed to analyse data collected from the field survey. Results from the study showed that majority (95.00%) of the respondents were still in their economically active age with female household accounting for 62.50% of the total sample. Majority (66.67%) of the marketers had married with an average household size of 6 members. Findings also revealed that majority (71.67%) of the respondents spent at least 6 years in schools with an average of 7 year’s experience in the business. From the study, 36.67% of the marketers sold at the local markets, 32.50% sold their snails in urban markets while the rest 30.83% explored roadside market to sell their snails. Only half (50%) of the respondents belonged to marketing association in the study area. The cost and return analysis revealed that a snail marketer made an average gross margin of ₦82,340.00 and net profit of ₦81,120.00 respectively per marketing cycle. The profitability ratio conducted shows that snail marketing is profitable business with a capital turnover of 1.32 and return on investment of 31.89% per cycle per marketer. Based on these results, it is recommended that policy interventions that will facilitate provision of soft loan to the marketers without collateral should be put in place so that income inequality can be reduced among snail marketers.