Inland water transportation attributes and marketing performance of micro-businesses

The study explored inland water transportation attributes (cost, safety, security, multiple taxation, and climate change) and marketing performance of micro agricultural businesses in Cross River State. Cross-sectional survey research design and structured questionnaire were used for the study. The population of the study was micro agricultural businesses and 160 owners of micro agricultural businesses constituted the sample size. Multiple linear regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses of the study. The findings revealed that transportation cost, safety, security and climate change had significant positive effects on the marketing performance of micro agricultural businesses, while multiple taxation was significantly negative. Therefore, the study recommended that regulators of inland water transportation channels should make transportation fares more affordable, provide more safety accessories, security architecture in the waterways to be consistently reviewed and improved in order to guard against and eliminate potential threats, multiple and disproportional tax rates levied on micro agricultural businesses should be made fairer and more closely proportional to the volume of merchandise they carry in order to shore up the performance of these businesses.