摘要：The study examined retail marketing margin and pricing efficiency of pineapple among selected marketing pairs in Nigeria. A multi-stage random sampling technique was used to collect primary data on trader’s characteristics and marketing factors in the study area. Secondary data for pricing efficiency were collected from states’ Agricultural Development Programme and Project Coordinating Unit. The data were analyzed with the aid of descriptive statistics simple margin analysis and bivariate correlation coefficient. The results showed that women are more involved in pineapple marketing; most of the respondents had primary level of education and have been in the business for more than 10 years in the business. The marketing margin recorded by an average retailer in the rural market was N3986.23/ton while it was N10877.63/ton in the urban market depicting an average marketing margin percentage of 10.9 and 20.3%, respectively. Transportation cost accounted for the large component of total marketing cost and this is followed by storage cost. The bivariate correlation coefficient showed that 73.3% of the market pairs have correlation coefficient between 0.01 and 0.50, which implies an inefficient price communication between markets. There is a significant difference between the mean retail price of pineapple in rural and urban markets in Edo and Oyo State while there is no significant difference between mean retail prices of pineapple in Lagos State. Thus, efforts to improve market information and reduction in transport costs will improve marketing margin and pricing efficiency of the marketers.
