ANALYSIS OF SOCIO- ECONOMIC CHARACTERISTICS OF PIGS FARMERS THAT INFLUENCE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN KADUNA STATE, NIGERIA

¹Banta, A.L.; ²Wamagi I. Thomas; ³Ayuba A.M. and ⁴Olukosi J.O

^1&2Department of General Agriculture, Nuhu Bamalli Polytechnic, Zaria

³Ministry of Education Kaduna, Kaduna

⁴Landmark University Kwara State, Nigeria

bantaayuba@yahoo.com

ABTRACT

This paper focuses on analysis of socio-economics characteristics of pigs farmers that influence sustainable development in Kaduna state, Nigeria. The objectives of this paper was to determine the socio-economic characteristics of pig farmers that influence sustainable development in the study area, to assess the source of farm inputs among the farmers and to identify the problems of pig production and suggest control measures  to the factors limit productivity in the study area. Primary data used for this research were collected through the aid of structured questionnaire alongside oral interview during the 2011 farming season. A total of 90 farmers out of 1804 farmer identified by Kaduna State Agricultural Development Production(KADP) farmers list were selected using random sampling techniques. Simple descriptive statistics was employed to analyze parameters such as farmers’ age, level of education, household size, problems of pigs productions. Result indicates that farmers had mean age of 44 years indicating that farmers were within the active age of productivity. The result in Table 1 indicates the mean herd size was 3.5 indicating the farmers were small-scale category. Overall educational level of the respondents showed that a large number of the pigs farmers were literate (73%). The result on Table 2 showed that sample farmers obtained their input from open market personal farms, neighbourhood, batter and gift. Problems of pigs farmers were identified to include cost of feeds (36%), disease and high cost of veterinary services (36%), poor pig housing 10%, low prices of pigs in the market (8%) lack of finance (6%), High cost of transportation (2%), and 1% lack of improved breeds 1%. The paper recommended that the state ministry of Agriculture should revive the breeding of improved and prolific breeds to increase production level, farmer need to be assisted financially through microfinance banks and cooperate societies to encourage production. Improved feeds including concentrates should be produced and distributed to farmers at affordable prices for increased and sustainable productivity and economic growth.

Keywords: Analysis, Socioeconomic, Characteristics, Pigs, Farmers, Sustainable Development, Kaduna State