FACTORS AFFECTING ENTREPRENEURSHIP DEVELOPMENT AMONG THE FOOD MARKETERS IN ILORIN METROPOLIS, KWARA STATE, NIGERIA.

S The study assessed the factors affecting entrepreneurship development among Food Marketers in Ilorin Metropolis, Kwara State, Nigeria. One hundred and ten respondents were randomly selected in four markets in Ilorin. The data was analyzed using frequency count, percentage, mean and Pearson Product Moment Correlation. The result reveals that mean age of the respondents was 30.5 years and about 58.2% were female. Record keeping skills (mean score =2.42) was the highest ranked entrepreneurial information needs of the respondents while lack of start-up capital (mean score =2.40) was the most severe factor affecting entrepreneurial activities of food marketers. There is a weak positive significant relationship between the entrepreneurial information needs and factors affecting entrepreneurial development of the respondents (r=0.407, p=0.0001). The study recommends that there should be provision of training on entrepreneurial skills based on the identified areas of needs and there should be provision of credit facilities to the food marketers as these will enhance their productivity.


INTRODUCTION
An entrepreneur is a person who starts a business, or businesses, taking on financial risk in the hope of profit. Entrepreneurship is an activity that involves discovering, evaluating and exploiting opportunities in order to introduce products, services, methods, processes, and new materials (Sabuhilaki, 2016). Entrepreneurship is the application of energy for initiating and building an enterprise (Mishra, El-Osta & Shaik 2010). The term entrepreneurship is used to describe the dynamic process of creating incremental wealth (Shailesh, Gyanendra & Yadav 2013). Entrepreneurship is actually concerned with creating opportunities and meeting the needs of individuals or customers. Food marketer is a person that deals with food in the market. Food marketers promotes or sells food stuffs or food products in the market. Food marketers makes food available to the consumers in the market. According to Owoade, (2014) entrepreneurs through their active participation in the food and agricultural sector would strongly impacts food security, industrialization efforts, quality of life, economic growth, and political stability and, to a certain extent, a nation's position in international relations and trade.
Development of entrepreneurship skills of food marketers will enhance their productivity, open up new business opportunities, improve the Nigerian economy and reduce the high rate of unemployment in Nigeria. This is important because agriculture is an effective strategy or tool to alleviate hunger and poverty as it has huge and diverse potentials that can not only transform the national economy but also immensely reduce the high rate of unemployment in the country (Amungwa & Baye, 2014). Provision of entrepreneurial skills and financial opportunities to farmers and food marketers in Nigeria will help develop the Nigerian economy as sustainable development can only be achieved in Nigeria if there is food and nutritional security in the country. According to Jancikova (2004), the factors affecting entrepreneurial activities are persistence factor, organizational factor, finance, education, personal autonomy, previous experience, creativity, sense of accomplishment and internal control. Also, poor management practices, low entrepreneurial skills, lack of relevant educational background and business exposure are the constraints of agricultural entrepreneurship in Nigeria (Chibundu, 2006). Several studies have been conducted in Nigeria on entrepreneurship. Nwibo & Okorie (2013) examined the constraints to entrepreneurship among investors in South-east Nigeria and Kagbu (2018) also examined the constraints of women farmers' entrepreneurial development in Nasarawa State, Nigeria. However, there is dearth of information on the factors affecting entrepreneurial development among food marketers in kwara State. This creates a great lacuna in knowledge and this is the gap this study seeks to fill. It was on this note that this study sought to determine the factors affecting the entrepreneurial development among the food marketers in Ilorin metropolis, Kwara State. The specific objectives were to; (i) describe the socio-economic characteristics of the respondents. (ii) determine the entrepreneurial information needs of the respondents. (iii) identify the perceived factors affecting entrepreneurial development among the food marketers.
The Hypothesis of the study were stated in null form as: There is no significant relationship between entrepreneurial information needs and the factors affecting the entrepreneurial development of food marketers in Ilorin Metropolis.

METHODOLOGY
The study was conducted in Ilorin Metropolis, Kwara State, Nigeria. Ilorin is the capital of kwara State, Nigeria. Ilorin is the most populated city in Kwara State. A two-stage sampling procedure was used for the study. The first stage involved a random selection off our markets in Ilorin metropolis. The markets are Oja-oba market, Ipata market, Oja-tuntun market and kulende market. The second stage involved a purposive selection of one hundred and ten respondents across the four markets. In Oja-oba market 30 respondents were selected, Ipata market 30 respondents were selected, in Oja-tuntun market 30 respondents were selected and in Kulende market 20 respondents were selected making a total of 110 respondents. To determine the entrepreneurial information needs of the respondents. Respondents were provided with the list of 16 possible entrepreneurial information need areas. A three-point Likert-typed scale was used, scores was assigned as follows: Not Needed=1, Moderately Needed=2 and Highly Needed=3. To identify the factors affecting entrepreneurial development, respondents were provided with the list of 16 possible factors affecting entrepreneurial development. A three-point Likert-typed scale of Not a factor=1, Not serious=2, Serious=3 was used. Descriptive statistics such as frequency counts, percentage and mean score were used to analyse the finding of the study. Pearson Product Moment Correlation (PPMC) was used to test the hypothesis of the study. The SPSS statistical package 22 was used to analysed the data of the study.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The Socio-economic Characteristics The result in Table 1 reveals that more than half (58.2%) of the respondents were female and about 41.8 % were male. This result indicates that both male and female are involved in food marketing. The average age of the respondents was 30.5 years. This denotes that the respondents were in economic active age bracket. This result is in contrast with the findings of Olowa and Olowa (2015) who reported that the average age of people in agri-business in Lagos State was 42.1 years. The result in Table 1 reveals that about 47.0 % of the respondents were single while about 40.0% were married. This indicated that higher percentage of the respondents does not have marital responsibility. The result in Table  1 reveals that about 40.9 % of the respondents had tertiary education. The average monthly income of the respondents was 50,136.13Naira.This indicates that food marketing is a viable means of livelihoods as the average monthly income of the respondents is above the new national minimum wage of 30,000 naira in Nigeria. This result is contrary to the findings of Kagbu (2018) who reported that average monthly income of women farmers in Nasarawa State, Nigeria was 17,396.62 Naira. The average years of experience of the respondents was 5.7 years. The result in Table 1 further reveals that about 30.0 % of the respondents were into meat and fish business and about 21.8 % were into beverages and package food business in the study area.

Entrepreneurial Information Needs
The result in Table 2 reveals that the highest ranked entrepreneurial information needs of the respondents was record keeping skills (mean score =2.42), the second ranked entrepreneurial information needs was risk taking skills (mean score =2.32), The third ranked entrepreneurial information needs was time management skills (mean score =2.30), goal setting skills (mean score =2.28), decision making skills (mean score =2.22), product branding and packaging skills (mean score =2.21), customer relation skills (mean score =2.20), business plan, proposal writing and marketing skills ( mean score = 2.17), value addition initiative (mean score =2.11) and persuasive and persistent skills (mean score =2.03). This indicates that the food marketers required more information as there are gaps in their current knowledge on entrepreneurial skills. This result is in agreement with the findings of Owoade, Omogoye and Olaniyan (2011) who reported that the entrepreneurs needs motivation skills, credit acquisition skills, interpersonal relationship skills, social network and interaction skill.

The Factors Affecting Entrepreneurial Development of Food Marketers
The result in Table 3 reveals that the most severe factor affecting entrepreneurial activities among food marketers was lack of startup capital (mean score =2.40), the second ranked factor affecting entrepreneurial activities was poor attitude of the society to food marketers (mean score =2.34), ranked third was cumbersome procedure for credit acquisition (mean score =2.21), long distance to the rural farms and markets (mean score =2.20) and lack of labour (mean score =2.17). This result reveals that food marketers were constrained by poor infrastructures, lack of market opportunity, lack of access to finance and enabling environment and managerial skills. These factors indicated that there are enormous challenges facing food marketers. This result is in agreement with the findings of Olowa and Olowa (2015) who reported that the factors affecting entrepreneurial activities are economic, social, cultural, marketing and training factors. There is no significant relationship between entrepreneurial information needs and the factors affecting the entrepreneurial development of food marketers in Ilorin Metropolis. The result in Table 4 reveals that there is a weak positive significant relationship between the entrepreneurial information needs and factors affecting entrepreneurial development (r = 0.470, p=0.001) at 1% level of significance. This denotes that the higher the entrepreneurial information needs, the higher the factors affecting entrepreneurial activities of the marketers. This further indicates that the higher the severity of the factors affecting entrepreneurial activities, the more the food marketers would seek more information on their entrepreneurial activities. The implication of the weak positive correlation is that as one variable increases, there is a lower likelihood of an increase in the second variable. Note :**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

CONCLUSION
Based on the findings of this study, the study concluded that the average age of the respondents was 30.5 years, the average monthly income of the respondents was 50,136.13 Naira, the highest ranked entrepreneurial information need was record keeping skills and lack of start-up capital was the most severe factor affecting entrepreneurial development among the food marketers.

RECOMMENDATION
In order to develop entrepreneurial capacity of the food marketers in Nigeria, this study recommends that there should be provision of training on entrepreneurial skills based on the identified areas of needs and there should be provision of credit facilities to the food marketers as this will enhance their productivity.