Charcoal Enterprise in Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria

Charcoal enterprise has been adopted to meet some socio-economic benefits and energy needs of the people. The study was conducted to determine peoples’ involvement, uses and reasons for using charcoal, distribution channel as well as weekly sales and profit of the enterprise. The results revealed that people involved in sales of charcoal were 28.26%, 9% and 2% of the respondents for Igun Street, Oba market/New Benin and Ikpoba Hill market respectively. The identified uses of charcoal were for roasting of maize (32. 75%), Suya preparation and cooking of food accounted for 13.70% and 16.13% respectively, while Black Smiting and Bronze casting accounted for 13.70% of the respondents. ANOVA indicated that there were no significant differences (P > 0.05) among the identified reasons for using charcoal as well as the weekly sales of the product. However, distribution channel of charcoal showed significant difference (P< 0.05) with dominant retail channel revealed using fishers least significant difference (LSD). The weekly profits of over N2,000 were confirmed by 48. 48% and 24.24% of the respondents for the rainy and dry seasons respectively. Research effort in charcoal enterprise needs to be focused in order to ensure sustainable development and realization of the desired potential of the enterprise.