Abalone marketing and its performance during COVID-19 pandemic

This study aims to analyze the abalone marketing in Buton Island and its performance during the Covid-19 pandemic Abalone is one of Indonesian marine resources with great potential to be developed The high demand for abalone is usually not met with enough supplies, resulting in its expensive price Sources are scattered and in remote locations, creating the need for marketing institutions The study took place in Bajo Bahari village (Buton regency) and Baubau (a city in Southeast Sulawesi), Indonesia The data was initially collected in February to May 2015, and later in March 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic hit The study consists of all 30 Bajo Bahari abalone fishermen Additionally, 5 abalone merchants were chosen using snowball sampling method;which consists of 3 village abalone collector (VAC) and 2 wholesalers who act as the inter-island abalone trader (IAT) The abalone marketing performance was analyzed through the marketing margin and the fishermen's share, by first identifying the marketing channels Results show two marketing channels were created, channel I (fishermen as producers→VAC→IAT) and channel II (fishermen as producers→IAT) Channel II showed better performance compared to channel I Channel II had lower marketing margin (IDR 58,333) and high fishermen’s share, 72% In contrast, channel I showed higher marketing margin (IDR 127,778) and low fishermen’s share, 16% The Covid-19 pandemic poses challenges to the local abalone marketing, where fishing activities are stopped and disrupted the overall abalone marketing in Buton Island © 2020, BIOFLUX SRL All rights reserved