Analysis of Farmers Perception on Socio-Economic Benefits of Rabbit Production in Gokana Local Government Area, Rivers State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study assessed the perception of rabbit production among rural dwellers in Gokana Local Government Area, Rivers State, Nigeria. Multi-stage sampling technique was used to select 90 rabbit farmers. Data collection was through structured questionnaire and analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics such as mean and Ordinary Least Square (OLS) regression analysis. Findings reveal that the mean age of the rabbit farmers was 48.2 years, 83.3% of the entire sampled farmers were males while 16.7% were females. Majority of the rabbit farmers (61.1%) were also married with a mean household size of 7 persons. The results also reveal that consumption not deprived of cultural and religious bias, high efficiency in converting forage to meat (= 3.39), short gestation period (= 3.36), high probability of replenishing invested capital (= 3.33), low cost of production (= 3.30), high medicinal value (= 3.26) and high prolificacy (= 3.26) were the mean responses of farmers on their perception of rabbit production in the study area. The study also revealed that lack of training opportunities (= 3.23), lack of finance (= 3.19) and lack of manpower (= 3.16) were the major challenges that impeded the production of rabbit by farmers in the study area. The result of the Ordinary Least Square (OLS) regression analysis revealed that gender, age, marital status, level of education, farming experience and membership of association significantly influenced rabbit production in the study area. From the findings, it was concluded that the farmers generally had positive perception of rabbit production in the study area. The study recommended that efforts should be directed towards making favourable government policies that will address challenges such as lack of training opportunities, lack of finance, lack of manpower among others which impeded rabbit production in the study area.