Gender participation in commercial poultry production in Karu and Lafia Areas, Nasarawa State, Nigeria

S O Okoh, S A Rahman and H I Ibrahim

Department of Agricultural Economics and Extension, Faculty of Agriculture, Nasarawa State University Keffi, Shabu-Lafia campus PMB 135 Lafia, Nigeria
Hassibrahim@yahoo.com

Abstract

The study examined gender participation and role of women in commercial poultry production in Karu and Lafia Local Government Areas of Nasarawa State, Nigeria. A sample of 44 households with commercial poultry farms were surveyed through structured questionnaire. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, linear and logit regression models.

The results revealed that men participated more on management activities such as vaccination, administration of drugs, debeaking and chicks procurement while women were more engaged in daily routine activities like cleaning of pens, provision of water, sorting of eggs etc. Furthermore women enjoyed about 53.6% level of involvement in farm decision making and only about 28.7% rate of accessibility to farm resources. Major determinants of the rate of accessibility of resources by women were flock size, years of experience, primary occupation, access to credit, cooperative participation and level of income. The determinants of decision making among women are age, years of experience, occupation, cooperative membership and income level.

The study recommends that poultry production activities which have been identified to be of interest to women must be used as an avenue for empowering them. Input subsidies and credit facilities must be made available and easily accessible by the women. The women must be given maximum consideration with regards to extension service to inform, educate and train them on the use of recommended practices and technologies. They should be encouraged to participate in cooperative society in order to leverage the opportunity of access to farm resources.

Keywords: accessibility, farm decision, involvement, women

Introduction

In Nigeria, food production has not increased at the rate that can meet the increasing population. While food production increases at the rate of 2.5%, food demand increases at a rate of more than 3.5% due to the high population growth rate of 2.8% (FOS 1996). Therefore, poultry represents an appropriate system to feed the fast growing population and also play an important role in household food security. In spite of her numerous human and natural resources, Nigeria still remains among the least consumers of animal protein in Africa. CBN (1993) revealed that an average Nigerian consumes 7.5 g which is below the recommended level of 27 g/head/day. To increase protein intake in Nigeria, there is urgent need to increase poultry production at households and commercial holdings. Animal protein is essential in human nutrition because of its biological significance. Poultry and poultry products such as poultry meat and eggs are important foods for improving nutritional and health status particularly of children, pregnant women and weak persons (Olaniyi et al 2008). It is now well known that a very rapid increase in poultry products can be achieved in a short time compared to beef production (Rahman and Yakubu 2006). According to Sani et al (2000), some factors that make poultry business a very attractive venture are the high demand for poultry products, the success of exotic breeds and the ease of mastering the techniques of poultry production, among other factors.

Over the past decades, awareness of gender issues in development has steadily increased (Rahman et al 2007). There is a large and growing literature concerned with gender-based distributional issues and the economic activities of rural women. A great deal of substantive work has been done concerning, for example, the distribution of resources and work within the household (Jones 1986; Kanbur and Haddad 1994); the various roles played by women and men in a variety of farming systems (Carney and Watts 1990; Aredo 1992; Guyer 1984); the access of women to credit markets (Morris and Meyer 1993); discrimination against women in formal-sector interventions in smallholder agriculture (Bowen 1993); and the relative effects of increases in men's and women's incomes on the health, nutrition, and education of children (Strauss and Thomas 1995).

There is a growing recognition of the contribution of women to agricultural production today. Research reports have confirmed that women all over the world are taking over farm activities from men (ILO 1977; Saito and Spurling 1992). Uwakah et al (1991) pointed out that it is common for women to manage farms in all parts of the world while men drift about cities in search of paid employment. Kisekka (1981) reported that in Nigeria, 60–80% of the agricultural workers are women.  Agricultural activities that women are engaged in are many and vary from one community to the other. Their activities ranges from dominating the labour resources on production farms and domestic food processing, to animal husbandry of which their involvement in poultry production for a sustainable protein needs of immediate household and source of income cannot be overemphasized. Raising poultry is a popular activity among women in most countries. In fact, women have been reported to be the predominant owners of poultry (Okitoi et al 2007). Therefore an explicit integration of women’s concern in poultry production system can allow for a broader perspective in identifying the needs, constraints and opportunities for women and further identify the area of interest for the purpose of empowering them.

Problem statement

Surveys undertaken in a number of states, regions and nations have reported gender plurality in ownership, management and decision-making which in one way or the other has affected individual men and women in their full participation in agricultural production. There has being great disparity between men and women in their involvements in farm activities and decision making process on farms (Rahman et al 2007). Women are in most cases limited in their involvement in farm decisions compared to men. The limitation has a lot of implication for women access to and control over resources of their own (Rahman and Alamu 2003). Despite their considerable involvement and contribution, women’s role in livestock production has often being underestimated or, ignored (IFAD 2007). Despite the significant role of female farmers, their level of productivity is constrained because agricultural technology has been designed on the assumption that farm managers are men. This assumption gives rise to several other constraints on the progress of female farmers: failure of extension workers to reach them; limited access to credit inputs; lack of access to relevant technological information; and lack of incentive to increase productivity (Saito and Spurling 1992). Mbanelo (1990) and Nweke (1994), however, reported that most policies aimed at making agro-technological inputs accessible to female farmers in Nigeria were actually directed towards men.

Generally, poultry farmers are seldom considered by extension agents to visit and motivate them on the need to improve their level of poultry production, provide trainings that would augment their potential capabilities and information on technological advancement regarding poultry production that would aid improvement in their output. Based on the fore going it is imperative to analyze gender participation and the role of women in commercial poultry production in the study areas. The specific objectives of the study were to:

i)        describe the socio-economic characteristics of women in commercial poultry production.

ii)       compare male and female labour contributions to commercial poultry production

iii)     determine level of women involvement in decision making for poultry production.

iv)     determine the rate of women’s accessibility to poultry farm resources.

v)      identify the socio-economic factors affecting women’s accessibility to resources for poultry production.

vi)     identify the socio-economic factors determining women’s involvement in decision making for poultry production.

Methodology 

The study was conducted in two areas of Nasarawa State namely; Karu (latitude 07⁰30’N and longitude 08⁰50’E) and Lafia, (latitude 09⁰33’N and longitude 09⁰33’E) respectively. The list of registered commercial poultry farmers was obtained from Nasarawa State Ministry of Agriculture, Lafia.  A total of twenty seven (27) commercial poultry farms were obtained in Karu area while seventeen (17) were obtained in Lafia (Table 1).

Therefore a total of 44 commercial poultry farms were involved in the study. Primary data were collected for the study over a period of two weeks. Interview with a household head and a woman in each household that is engaged in commercial poultry production was scheduled and structured questionnaire was administered to elicit responses on socio-economic characteristics of women, productive activities in poultry farming, women’s involvement in decision-making for poultry production and their accessibility to farm resources. The authors and two enumerators participated in the data collection.

Statistical analysis

Descriptive statistics such as frequency counts, percentages, mean, standard deviation and coefficient of variation were used to satisfy objectives i, ii, iii and iv. Multiple regressions analysis was used to satisfy objectives iv. Four functional forms (linear, double log, semi-log and exponential forms) of the model were fitted into the data and the linear model had the best fit out of the four and was eventually selected for result discussion based on the following criteria: 1) coefficient of multiple determination (R²), 2) expected signs of the regression coefficients, and 3) number of significant variables (t-value). The linear functional form of the regression model was expressed as follows:

Y    =     a + β₁X₁ + β ₂X₂ + β ₃X₃ + β ₄X₄ + β ₅X₅ + β ₆X₆+ β ₇X₇+ β ₈X₈ + U

Where,

Y= Rate of accessibility of women to resources (percentages)

X₁ =Age of women (years)

X_{2 =} Years of experience of women in poultry farming. (Years)

X₃ = flock size (Number)

X₄ = Educational level. (No. of years spent in school)

X₅ = Access to credit (N/year)

X₆ = No. of children (numbers)

X₇ = Cooperative participation (Years)

X₈ =Annual income (N)

β₁ – β₈  = Regression coefficients

a = constant term

U= error term.

Logit Regression Model was used to satisfy objective vi. The logit regression model is one of the binary choice models in which a dichotomous response variable is considered as the dependent variable (Rahman and Alamu 2003). The model is based on the cumulative logistic probability function (Rahman 2005). The model assumes that the probability is:

Where,

            Z_i = a + βX_i

                Z_i = cumulative logistic distribution. 

Z_i is a theoretical or unobservable variable. In order to obtain the value of Z_i, the likelihood of observing the sample need to be formed by introducing a dichotomous variable y_i such that:

Y =      1 if i^th woman was involved in decision making for poultry production.

            0 if i^th woman was not involved or less involved in decision making for poultry production.

For this study Z_i  was expressed as:

Z_i = a + β ₁X₁ + β ₂X₂ + β ₃X₃ + β ₄X₄ + β ₅X₅ + β ₆X₆ + β ₇X₇ + β ₈X₈

The eight factors influencing the involvement of the i^th woman in decision making for poultry production are defined as follows:

X₁ =Age of women (years)

X_{2 =} Years of experience of women in poultry farming. (Years)

X₃ = Major occupation. (1 if poultry farming and 0 if otherwise)

X₄ = Educational level. (Years)

X₅ = Access to credit (N/year)

X₆ = No. of children (numbers)

X₇ = Cooperative participation (years)

X₈ =Annual income (N)

β₁ – β ₈ = Logit Regression coefficient

a = constant term.

Results and discussion 

Socio-economic characteristics of women in commercial poultry production

The socio-economic features of the women in commercial poultry production are described as presented in Table 2.

The table revealed that 28 and 48 as minimum and maximum age respectively among the women with mean of 40 years. This implies that all the women sampled for the study were within their active age range. Table 2 also revealed little variability in age among the women as reflected in the magnitude of the coefficient of variation (15.2 %). The women on the average had 3 children but with wider variability among them (coefficient of variation is 73.5 %. There were cases of no child and maximum of 11 children. The number of children in the farm household could influence the labour availability for farm operations. The average years of schooling were 12 years; which implies that women had secondary school on the average. The minimum and maximum flock size observed were 100 and 500 birds respectively with mean of 247 and coefficient of variation of 59.5%. This is an indication that the flock size varied greatly among the farm households studied. The women’s experience in poultry farming was maximum of 16 years and minimum of 1 year, with wider variability (coefficient of variation is 76.7% The cooperative participation and credit varied widely among women with coefficient of variation of 70.6 and 67.0%, respectively. Majority (45.5%) of the farm households were engaged in both broiler and egg production. Majority (47.7%) were civil servants who also engaged in poultry farming; followed by 29.5%  who had poultry farming as their primary occupation.

Gender labour contribution to specific farm operations (Man-hours)

Twelve different farm operations were identified in commercial poultry production as shown in Table 3.

Compared to men, women contributed more in feeding of birds (63.1%), provision of water (60.9%), cleaning of pen (62.1%), sorting of eggs (63.9%), selling of products (72.9%) and record keeping (56.2%). However, the women labour was very low for the operations such as vaccination of birds ((21.4%) and debeaking of birds (17.8%). There were significant disparity in labour contribution to poultry farm between men and women for farm operations such as procurement of chicks, feeding of chicks, provision of water, vaccination of birds, cleaning of pen, sorting of eggs and selling of products. For all the farm operations put together, women contributed 54.7% of the labour input in the commercial poultry production in the study area.

Level of women’s involvement in farm decision-making

There were nine aspects of decision-making identified in the commercial poultry production in the study area (Table 4).

Rate of women’s accessibility to farm resources

The rates of accessibility of women to farm resources are presented in Table 5.

Socio-economic factors affecting women’s accessibility to poultry farm resources

The socio-economic factors that affect women’s accessibility to poultry farm resources are presented in Table 6.

Socio-economic factors determining women’s level of involvement in farm decision-making

The socio-economic factors that influenced women’s involvement in decision making in the poultry production are presented in Table 7. 

Conclusion  

• It can be concluded from the study that women contribute greatly to commercial poultry farming in terms of labour. The women were involved in the decision making in poultry production at 53.67% rate. However they were less accessible to farm resources at about 44% rate.

Recommendations  

One of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set by the United Nation Organization to be achievable by the year 2015 is to reduce gender inequality and empower women. To achieve this goal, the interest and specialization of women must be considered. Thus based on the findings of the study, the following recommendations should be considered:

1.    Poultry production activities which have being discovered to be the interest of the women must be used as an avenue for empowerment.

2.    Funds, input subsides and credit facilities should be made available and easily accessible by the women to maximize their potential of poultry production in order to enhance their contribution to food security.

3.    The women should be given maximum consideration with regards to extension services to inform, educate and train them on the use of recommended practices and technologies.

4.    The women should be encouraged to participate in cooperative society in order to leverage the opportunity of access to farm resources.

Acknowledgements 

The authors sincerely acknowledge the cooperation from the respondents as well as the assistance from the staff of Nasarawa Agricultural Development Programme especially during the data collection stage.

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Received 13 March 2010; Accepted 25 June 2010; Published 1 September 2010

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