Abstract
This study was a comparative economic analysis of poultry egg production under different production systems in Oyo State, Nigeria. Primary data were collected with the aid of a structured questionnaire from 134 (75 battery cage and 59 deep litter systems) poultry farmers through a multistage sampling procedure in three agricultural zones of the State. Descriptive statistics, budgetary techniques, Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), Tobit regression and student-t test methods were used to analyze the data. Results showed that the mean ages of the farmers were 44 and 40years for battery cage and deep litter systems respectively, while 97.3% and 97.0% of battery cage and deep litter system users had formal education respectively. Also, 78.9% and 88.1%; 65.3% and 57.6%; 25.3% and 28.8% of battery cage and deep litter users were male, members of cooperative society and had extension contacts respectively while 57.3% and 76.3%; 86.7 and 84.8% of battery cage and deep litter users used Isah Brown breed and commercial feed respectively. The Net Farm Incomes (NFI) per bird for battery cage system were ₦2,052.17; ₦1,282.86 and ₦1,605.28 while that of deep litter system were ₦1,897.84; ₦1,467.46 and ₦1,236.06 for small, medium and large scale farmers respectively. DEA revealed that the mean technical efficiencies for battery cage and deep litter systems were 0.892 and 0.912. Tobit regression revealed that the determinants of technical efficiency of farmers using battery cage system were extension visits (p<0.01); gender (p<0.01); farmers’ years of education (p<0.05) and membership of cooperative society (p<0.05). Also, the efficiency of farmers using deep litter system was influenced by breed of bird (p<0.01); feed type (p<0.01) and gender (p<0.01). This study concluded that there is no efficiency loss in the choice of either of the systems, except that expansion may be restricted in deep liter system if land constraints exist. The study recommended that farmers who wish to invest in poultry egg production are at liberty to choose either of the systems depending on the intended scale of production.
Highlights
Despite the numerous economic importance of agriculture, the sector is presently in distress and Nigeria which was once a food exporter is a food importing nation [1]
The participation of more males than females in poultry business may be due the stress involved in poultry egg production which may deter most females from wanting to invest in the venture
The involvement of less female compared to male in egg production could be due to the assumption that females are less efficient than male poultry egg farmers [16]
Summary
Despite the numerous economic importance of agriculture, the sector is presently in distress and Nigeria which was once a food exporter is a food importing nation [1]. The importance of livestock sub-sector is in line with recommendation of the Food and Agricultural Organization [2] that on the average, a man’s daily protein intake should be between 65-72 grams and 53% (about 35 grams) of this should be animal based. According to the Food and Agricultural Organization, the major Nigerian Livestock resources consist of about 15,149,000 cattle, 49,000,000 sheep and goats, 6,112,000 pigs and 131,125,000 poultry [3]. From these figures, poultry represents about 65.11 percent of the total livestock resources, which indicates the place of pride that the poultry sub sector enjoys in the livestock industry. The other branches include the production of chicks; point of lay pullets or ready to lay birds and of poultry feed; the manufacturing of poultry equipment, as well as the processing or marketing of eggs and table birds [4]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
