CASHEW NUT’S MARKET STRUCTURE IN SOUTH EAST SULAWESI

The climate and land in Southeast Sulawesi that is very supportive in the development of farming commodities and cashew nut becomes one of the huge potentials to be developed. This study analyzed the structure of the cashew nut market which conducted purposively from May to August 2018 in five cashew nut production center in Southeast Sulawesi. The results of the study show that the number of sellers is more than the buyers which show imperfect market competition. The analysis of market valuations shows that the market structure that addresses low competition among traders is very unlikely. At the level of inter-island traders and market structure, wholesalers lead to tight oligopolies that are agreed upon as price agreements can be made, even at the inter-island level of traders leading to a tight oligopoly market. Meanwhile, the market structure of cashew nuts at the level of wholesalers and retailers leads to a dominant corporate market without strong competitors. Market entry challenges indicate that new competitors will have high challenges when entering the cashew market at inter-island traders, Middlemen, wholesalers and retailers. The overall analysis shows that new competitors will get very high challenges at the retailer level with an MES value of 81.38%.