Rural dwellers involvement in small scale poultry farming in Oluyole Local Government Area of Oyo State, Nigeria

O.G Ogunwale,A.O Ajanaku,O.O Abegunrin,O.O Oyewole,B.T Olatunji

doi:10.4314/gjass.v20i1.4

Abstract

Poultry production at all levels appears to be lucrative and profitable but many factors appear to limit the involvement of rural dwellers in this sector. This study was carried out at Oluyole Local Government Area Oyo State to assess the level of involvement of rural dwellers in small scale poultry farming. Some parts of Oluyole local government were purposely selected for this study because of higher concentration of rural dwellers that are involved in poultry production. A total of ninety five respondents were sampled and had a well-structured questionnaire administered to them to determine their socio economics characteristic, their level of involvement, benefit derived and constraint faced in poultry farming. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics of frequency counts, percentage and means, Chi-square and Pearson Product Moment Correlation (PPMC) at 0.05% level of significance. The results show that majority of the respondents were males (61.1%), married (68.8%) and have tertiary education (59.1%). Majority (50.5%) of the respondents were between the ages of 31-45years. Socio-economic characteristics such as age, region, sex, educational level, household size and income had no significant relationship with the respondent’s level of involvement in small scale poultry farming (P<0.05). Results on level of involvement shows that most (48.8%) of the sampled correspondents were involved in boilers production. The study also shows that the benefit derived in poultry farming remained the same regardless of the level of involvement of the farmers in various poultry activities, with r –value (0.177), p-value (0.089) indicating that the relationship is not significant (P<0.01), it also indicated that the relationship between the constraints facing the respondents and their level of involvement is not significant with r –value (0.154). Also, the major constraints facing the respondents included difficulty in accessing loan and quality feed. Government should therefore make loan facilities at affordable interest rate while all the stake holders should work together to improve farmers’ access to quality feed, vaccine, technical know-how and adequate extension workers.

Highlights

Small scale poultry production is an important agricultural sector usually found in most of the rural communities in Africa and most of them scavenge on available local feed resources
Based on the findings of this study, the following conclusions were drawn: the socio-economic characteristics of the respondents doesn’t affect the level of involvement of respondents in the study area but the benefit derived in poultry farming remains the same regardless of the level of their involvement
The more the respondents that were involve in poultry farming the lower the constraints the farmers are likely going to faced which is indicated by a negative r value

Summary

Introduction

Small scale poultry production is an important agricultural sector usually found in most of the rural communities in Africa and most of them scavenge on available local feed resources. Smallholder chicken production plays a major role in poverty alleviation and food security at household level. They are usually neglected in the development themes, but nowadays many researchers and development agents are making a strong consensus about their importance and contribution (Oladunni & Fatuase, 2014). Livestock sector make significant contribution towards supplement income from crop production and other sources and absorb financial stress due to crop failure. It generates a continuous stream of income and employment and reduces seasonality in livehood pattern of the rural dwellers (Birthal and Ali, 2005).

Methods

Findings

Discussion

Conclusion