**3. Results and discussion**

*Cucumber Economic Values and Its Cultivation and Breeding*

holder farmers to participate in the output market.

above information gap.

The study area was Ibadan (7o

wholesalers in the selected markets.

**2. Methodology**

perfectly competitive, oligopolistic or monopolistic market [9].

performance is the ultimate result derived from the market which include outcome from various market activities [5]. Furthermore, profitability is a key elements of financial performance [6]. Market structure is the characteristics of the organization of the market that influence the nature of competition and pricing within the market [7]. Market structure for agricultural products in Nigeria is not perfectly competitive due to collusive tendencies of sellers [8]. It is worthy of note that analysis of market structure, efficiency of an agricultural product determines whether the market is a

Most socioeconomic research on cucumber in Nigeria have focused on economics of production [1, 2]. This includes analysis of profitability and major constraints of cucumber production in two local government areas of Rivers state [2]. They found that cucumber production was profitable and the major constraints in cucumber production in the study area were pest and disease attacks, poor funding and unfavorable climatic conditions. Profitability and efficiency of cucumber production in Iseyin Local Government area of Oyo State was also evaluated [1]. They found that cucumber production was profitable in the study area and they found that Age, Education status of farmers and access to credit were the factors affecting technical efficiency of the farmers in cucumber production in the study area. Factors affecting cucumber farmers' market participation were examined in Odukpani Local Government Area of Cross River State, Nigeria [10]. They found that distance to the market, market information and quantity of cucumber harvested were significant and important factors affecting the ability of the small-

Past empirical studies on Market structure and performance of vegetables were on watermelon. Watermelon marketing was analyzed in Oyo State, Nigeria and the study revealed that watermelon marketing is profitable and efficient [11]. They also found that there was price discrimination and product differentiation in the market based on size and quality of the product. Structure and performance of pumpkin marketing was analyzed in Nassarawa State [4] and the study revealed that pumpkin marketing was profitable and the market was noncompetitive. Thus, there is dearth of information on market structure and performance of cucumber in Oyo state, Nigeria. The study intends to fill the

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plantain, banana, cucumber, watermelon and arable crops [12].

has a tropical wet and dry climate. There are eleven local government areas in Ibadan. The city is a major center for trade in horticultural commodities such as

Multistage sampling technique was employed in the selection of respondents. The first stage involved purposive selection of two local government areas (Ibadan North and Ibadan North West) with effective cucumber marketing while stage two involve selection of major markets noted for cucumber marketing in the local government while the third stage involve random selection of 54 retailers and 16

Primary data was collected with the aid of well-structured questionnaire. Socio economics characteristics of marketers was analyzed using descriptive statistics such as frequency and percentages. Market performance was analyzed using the net marketing margin and efficiency while the market structure was estimated using Gini coefficient. Gini coefficient is used to measure statistical dispersion and is a concentration indices and it utilizes market shares to determine the extent of

E), capital of Oyo state. The city

**52**
