The paper appraised watermelon marketing in Ondo State, Nigeria. The specific objectives of the paper are to
examine the socio economic characteristics of watermelon marketers and determine the structure of
watermelon marketing. Primary data were collected from fifty (50) randomly selected watermelon marketers
with the aid of well-structured questionnaire. Data collected from the field were analysed using descriptive
statistics, Gini-Coefficient .The paper revealed among others that: watermelon marketing is a new enterprise, as
attested by 80% of the respondents having between 1-5 years of marketing experience. It is a perfect market
with free entry and exit characterized by little or no role played by marketer’s association as 88% of the
respondents were not members of the association. Gini-Coefficient of 0.7318 obtained in this study indicates a
high level of concentration of watermelon market and hence high inefficiency in the market structure. Analysis
of the market conduct revealed that factors such as cost of acquisition plus margin, demand and supply and
quality were the determinants of the prices set by the respondents. The paper is recommended among others.
Due to the huge supplies from the north, government should embark on the construction of railways linking the
northern regions of the country to the South West Nigeria. This will drastically reduce the pressure of traffic on
roads. The Federal Ministry of Agriculture through the State and Local government should provide adequate
basic social amenities for the market.