Socio-economic characteristics of pig farmers as determinant of pig feeding pattern in Oyo state, Nigeria

A O K Adesehinwa, G E O Makinde and O I Oladele *

Institute of Agricultural Research and Training, Moor Plantation, Ibadan
^* Department of Agricultural Extension and Rural Development, University of Ibadan

Abstract

This paper examines the socio-economic characteristics as determinant of feeding pattern among pig farmers in Oyo state, Nigeria. This is based on the hypothesis that the decision to adopt or reject any agricultural innovation is deeply rooted in the socio-cultural and personal characteristics of the technology end users.

Sixty pig farmers were randomly selected from the Pig Farmers Association in Ibadan, Oyo state (with a membership strength of 601) and information on their socio-economic characteristics and pig-feeding pattern was elicited through a structured questionnaire.

The result shows that .pig farmer's socio-economic characteristics determined the type of feeding pattern used for the animals. This implies that farmer's socio-economic characteristics such as age, gender, family size and educational status should be considered as important livestock production variables in the development of improved technologies and policy formulation.

Keywords: Demographic characteristics, determinants, Nigeria, pig feeding

Introduction

The pig industry can be a very reliable one due to certain attributes of pigs and the Nigerian production system. Pigs have a high survival rate and also have the ability to utilize a host of agro-industrial by-products and crop residues (Ter Meulen and El-Harith 1985) with little or no processing and at minimal cost (Tewe and Adesehinwa 1995). Pigs are known to be prolific producers, realizing 20 to 30 piglets from 2 or 2½ litters per year. Its ability under efficient management and balanced nutrition to reach slaughter weight of about 80 to 90 kg in about 7 to 8 months makes it one of the most efficient feed converters. The production of pigs in an economically viable livestock system, therefore calls for the provision of nutritionally balanced rations. This represents between 50 to 83% of the cost of production in a commercial pig enterprise (Tewe and Adesehinwa 1995). Dwindling profit in a pig enterprise has been reported to be a function of poor quality feeds resulting from unbalanced rations (Adesehinwa and Ogunmodede 1995). This arises from insufficient knowledge about nutritional requirement of the animals, the nutrient composition of the feed ingredients necessitated by seasonal variations in the availability and cost of some of the basal ingredients. Studies on the pig and poultry industry seem to reveal that the initial enthusiasm in these enterprises especially pig production, is being constrained due largely to dwindling profit margins (Ogunfowora et al 1980). This paper therefore aims at assessing the demographic characteristics of pig farmers as determinant of pig feeding pattern in Oyo state, Nigeria.
 

Methodology

The study area was Ibadan, the state capital of Oyo State. It comprises eleven Local Government Areas. The target population of this study consisted of men and women participating in pig farming in these areas. There are 601 registered members on the list. This was arrived at through the Pig Farmers Association of Nigeria, based in Ibadan. A random sampling technique was used to select ten percent from the total members of the association to give a sample size of 60. Copies of structured questionnaire were administered and all were completed and returned. The sections of the questionnaire included socio-economic characteristics and feeding practices of the pig farmers - which were operationalized as indigenous, customized and improved feeding. The data were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS).
 

Results and discussion

Test of hypothesis

The result of Chi square analysis (Table 1) shows that there are significant associations between selected demographic and social characteristic and feeding practices of pig farmers in Ibadan and iits environment.

Table 2 shows that majority of the respondents were male. It can be inferred that pig farming is a male-dominated enterprise in agreement with the findings of Oni and Yusuf (1999). Adesehinwa et al (2003) reported that crosses of highly productive exotic stock of pigs are being successfully reared in an intensive to semi- intensive livestock production system in this peri-urban area of Southwestern Nigeria. In a study on gender analysis of livestock production (Oladele 2001), women were reported to be more involved in the production of goats, sheep and local poultry. The extensive system of management that is often applied in the production of these livestock was suggested to be the reason for the involvement of women in these enterprises.

The majority of the respondents were between ages 51 and 60 years. There were none in the age group of  21 to 30 years. This latter range is the active working age and so would include those who have gone to seek for white-collar jobs, especially in a peri-urban area. The majority of the younger group members combine pig farming with secular jobs. Farmers of 51 to 60 years are likely to be pensioners who retired from white-collar jobs and are now into pig  farming, generally as an income generating business. The majority of the respondents were married people who had children staying with them, thus implying that these farmers could have access to family labour.

Most men among the male respondents had one wife while seventeen percent had 3 wives and above. The more the number of wives, in the African setting, the larger the family size and definitely the more the expenses required, especially if the children are going to school. Thirty percent of the respondents had 5 to 6 children while 25% had 6 to 7 children and 17% had 7 and above.

The distribution according to occupation revealed that 76.7% are predominantly farmers, that is, not engaged in any other activities. Ten percent were into various other businesses such as trading while 13.3% were artisans apart from being pig farmers. This high proportion of predominant farmers is an indication that most pig farmers in Ibadan and it's environ are fully into farming activities with few combining farming with other occupations. Livestock production has been found to contribute significantly to household income in the Ibadan metropolis (Adenegan 2001).

The pig farmers in Ibadan are mostly Christians (table 1). However, despite the Islamic religious taboo against pigs, some Muslims still engage in pig farming, may be as a result of their educational status. Thus, the notion that Muslims do not rear pig may no longer be true. Most respondents had a secondary education and above, while only 9% had no formal education. It could be inferred from this result that the farmers are likely to be retired civil servants based on their level of education and age range. However, conscious effort should still be made by government and non-governmental agencies to improve the literacy level of the farmers, generally in Nigeria (Oni and Yusuf 1999).

Thirty-seven percent  of the respondents practiced livestock production solely while 30% practiced mixed farming, which is the combination of both livestock and crop production. The latter system is very important, in that it is a form of integrated farming whereby crop residues, wastes and by-products are processed and fed to the animals as food. Animal waste is in turn used as manure, to fertilize the soil for crop production thereby greatly reducing the cost of production.

The majority of the farmers (38.3%) had 11 to 15 years of experience. This was not significantly related to productivity as seventy (70%) of the respondents had 21 to 40 pigs while only 22% had 61to 80 pigs. This is an indication that unlike poultry farming most of the pig farms existing in Ibadan are still operating on small-scale. This may be due to inadequate capital resource base to expand existing farms and to start new ones, since livestock production is a high capital-intensive venture (Oni and Yusuf 1999). It should be noted that production figures given by farmers may not be reliable, as they sometimes give low figures to avoid tax and outrageously high figures when they expect benefits from government. Emerging from the above is the need for proper assessment of the demographic characteristics of the livestock farmers by government and all relevant agencies, as this have been proved by past agricultural studies to be strong determinants of agricultural production level (Fitzhugh et al 1992; Oni and Yusuf 1999) viz a viz pig feeding patterns.
 

Conclusions

Demographic and social characteristics of animal producers go a long way to influence their adoption of improve production technologies. The implication is that producers' characteristics such as gender, family size, main occupation, religion, type of farming, farming experience and herd size should  be considered before technologies are developed and disseminated.
 

References

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Received 31 July 2003; Accepted 28 November 2003

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