Competitiveness of Gum Arabic Marketing System at Elobeid Crops Market, North Kordofan State, Sudan

Tarig E. Mahmoud¹, Maruod E. Maruod², Manal A. Khiery³, Ahmed M. El Naim^3, and Moayad B. Zaied³

¹Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development, Faculty of Natural Resources and Environmental Studies, University of Kordofan, Elobeid, Sudan

²Department of Forestry Management, Faculty of Forestry, University of Khartoum, Sudan

³Department of Crop Sciences, Faculty of Natural Resources and Environmental Studies, University of Kordofan, Elobeid, Sudan

Cite this paper

Tarig E. Mahmoud, Maruod E. Maruod, Manal A. Khiery, Ahmed M. El Naim and Moayad B. Zaied. Competitiveness of Gum Arabic Marketing System at Elobeid Crops Market, North Kordofan State, Sudan. World Journal of Agricultural Research. 2014; 2(5):252-256. doi: 10.12691/WJAR-2-5-9

Abstract

Gum Arabic (GA) subsector in Sudan is largely structured by performance of its marketing systems and prevailing policy intervention. The marketing systems of GA commodity are indicated by the rural traditional, the urban and the auction markets. The commodity has been exposed to different scenarios of policy innervations ranging from monopoly, concession, liberalization and oligopoly measures. The current paper is intended to describe and assess the competence of gum Arabic marketing system at Elobeid Crops Market (ECsM) under the prevailing policy measures. Investigations, in such respect, entail to identify of the active GA stakeholders, market infrastructures, administrative setups, marketing channels, forces of supply and demand, pricing mechanisms and quality control measures. The paper applied a composite of research methodologies including descriptive statistics and policy analysis matrix. The findings revealed that GA producers, as major stakeholders, do not often exist physically at ECsM. The gum Arabic companies do not show up directly at the auction market. Results emphasized varying comparative advantages and competiveness pertaining GA trade at the auction market. Additionally, the oligopoly nature of the market is still predominating despite the adopted liberalization measures. Having understood the nature and complexity of GA local marketing systems in the North Kordofan State, the current paper proposed some arguments for improving competence GA stakeholders in the market.

Keywords

Gum Arabic, sstakeholders, concession, oligopoly, liberalization

Copyright

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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