Analysis of women involvement in livestock production in Lafia area of Nasarawa State, Nigeria

J A Ayoade, H I Ibrahim* and H Y Ibrahim*

Department of Animal Science, Faculty of Agriculture, Nasarawa State University, Keffi, Shabu-Lafia Campus
* Department of Agricultural Economics and Extension, Faculty of Agriculture,Nasarawa State University, Keffi, Shabu-Lafia Campus
Hassibrahim@yahoo.com   and   Husssein464@yahoo.com

Abstract

The study examined the involvement of Women in Livestock Production in Lafia Local Government Area of Nasarawa State, Nigeria. Simple random sampling was used to select 90 women livestock producers. Simple Descriptive Statistics, Participation Index and Multiple Regression Analysis were used to analyse the data.

The grand participation index (2.15) implies that women rarely participated in livestock production.. Women always participated in the feeding of animals (mean=2.94), cleaning of pens and cages (mean=2.90), provision of water (mean=2.90).The regression results revealed that education (p<0.05), income (p<0.01), access to credit (p<0.01) and cooperative participation (p<0.01) were the significant factors influencing women involvement in Livestock Production. Poultry and goats were the major types of Livestock kept by women. The major constraints faced by women in livestock production were inadequate capital, pre-occupation with household chores and dominance by their spouses.

The study recommends that the training needs of women involved in livestock production should be identified. The women should also be linked with micro finance banks in order to have access to capital which can be used to increase their level of involvement in Livestock production.

Keywords: constraints, livestock management, participation index, socio-economic factors

Introduction

Women in Nigeria form an active and reserve labour force but they rarely own the means of productions (Rahman 2004). However, the position of women in meeting challenges of agricultural development cannot be over emphasized. Women make a significant contribution to food production; they provide 60-80% of agricultural labour and are responsible for 80% of food production (Mgbada 2002; Rahman 2004). Socio-economic and political obstacles have for long been intensifying gender inequality and exacerbating poverty among women (Rahman and Haruna 1999). Saito (1992) advocates that, it is commonly believed that in Muslim dominated communities in the north of Nigeria, the obligations of men and women are clearly defined. The men provide food, water, firewood, money and shelter, for the family and gifts at festive sessions. Women across the developing world are disadvantaged relative to men. Under male dominated social structures and political systems, women do not derive equal access to land, technology, education and resources, As a result, rate of illiteracy, malnutrition and premature death are significantly higher among women and girls than they are among men (Horenstein 1989).

Women do not get the same as men in their access to critical farm resources and services such as farm land, credit and improved input due to cultural, traditional and sociological factors (Tanko 1994). Special steps to include women and overcome constraints to their participation are usually needed (Rahman 2004). There has also been a great disparity between women and men in the size of land holdings as well as any overall trend of increasing landlessness pressure (Quisumbing 1994). The overall feature of Nigerian women is essentially that of marginalisation, which is best explained within the context of productive relations (Ekwachi 1991). Women generally contribute more labour inputs in areas of feeding, manage vulnerable animals (calves, small ruminant and sick, injured and pregnant animals) cleaning barns, dairy related activities, (milking, butter and cheese making) transportation of farm manure and sale of milk and its products than men and children. Men own most of the livestock species and put up for sale animals and meat (Yisehak 2008). Women own a small proportion of the large animals as well as chicken and are milk managers in the small holder system. Both men and women take part in the harvesting and transportation of feed, chaffing of folder, feeding of animals, cleaning of sheds and sale of milk cheese and butter. Processing of milk is done solely by women while children of both sexes gather and herd animals.

Constraints to livestock production such as lack of capital and access to institutional credit comparing use of time, poor technical skills and lack of access to improved extension services affect women more than men, and may further limit the participation of women in livestock production (Yisehak 2008). Women typically have complete responsibility for animals that are kept close to the homestead such as poultry, calves and other small livestock and for sick animals and they rarely have major holding and management responsibilities for large stock (IFAD 1994). There is no doubt livestock production requires full participation of women, but this will not happen until women are perceived as the subjects of development (Rahman 2004). In view of the above, the need to analyse the involvement of women in livestock production in Nasarawa State becomes imperative. The objectives of this study were to:
 

1.                  describe the socio-economic characteristics of women that participate in livestock production.

2.                  determine the level of women participation in livestock production.

3.                  identify the factors that affect women participation in livestock production

4.                  identify the types of livestock kept by women in livestock production

5.                  identify the constraints faced by women in livestock production.

Methodology 

Lafia Local Government Area of Nasarawa State has a Population of about 330,712 people (NPC 2006). It is located between Latitude 7⁰-9⁰ N, Longitudes 7⁰-9⁰ E, altitudes 181.5m above sea level (Nasarawa State Ministry of Information 2006). The area is bordered by Obi Local Government Area to the South, Nasarawa Eggon to the North, Doma Local Government Area to the West and Quan pan Local Government Area of Plateau State to the East. The major types of livestock kept in the area include; goat, pig, poultry, The crops grown in the area includes yam, sesame, and groundnut. Lafia Local Government Area is divided into three extension blocks, each containing 6 cells. 5 women were randomly selected from each cell making a total of 30 women per block and 90 respondents for the study. Primary data were collected with the aid of an interview schedule administered by the researchers to the respondents. Data were collected over a period of two weeks. 

Analytical techniques

Simple Descriptive Statistics such as frequency counts and percentages was used to satisfy objectives 1, 4 and 5. A Participation index was used to achieve objective 2 .The index was constructed using a 3 point Likert scale. The 3 points scale was weighted in order of importance from; Never involved = 1, rarely involved = 2, always involved = 3. The respondents were asked to indicate their level of participation in 14 activities involved in Livestock production. The mean score for each of the activities was calculated and the grand mean score of all the activities was divided by the number of activities to determine the level of participation of women in livestock production.

Multiple regression analysis (ordinary least square) was used to achieve objective 3. The model was as specified below:
 

Y         =          a + b₁X₁ + b₂X₂ + b₃+X₃ + b₄X₄ + b₅X₅ + b₆+X₆ + b₇X₇ + U 

Y         =          Participation Index of Respondent

X₁        =          Age (years)

X₂        =          Experience in Livestock production (years)

X₃        =          Level of Education (No of years in school)

X₄        =          Access to credit (Dummy; 1 = yes, 0= otherwise)

X₅        =          Co-operative participation (years)

X₆        =          Extension visit (No of contact/years)

X₇          =             Farm income (N)

b₁ – b₇  =         Regression coefficients

a          =          Constant term       

U         =         well behaved error term

Results and discussion 

The socio-economic characteristics of the respondents are presented in Table 1.

Majority (56.7%) of the respondents were middle aged. The proportion of younger women in livestock production was relatively small (15.6%). This finding agrees with that of Bayola and Intong (2006) that though women loved animals, they totally disagreed with being used for raising livestock. The result also shows that majority (56.1%) of women in livestock production were married. 16.7% and 14.4% of the sampled respondents were widowed and divorced respectively. The educational status of women in livestock production shows that majority of the women (40%) have no formal education. This finding agrees with that of Aqeela et al (2005) that two third of the one billion of illiterate persons in the world are women and girls. Majority of the women (71.1%) in livestock production did not associate themselves with any form of cooperative participation. Majority (86.7%) of the women in livestock production had no access to credit facility this may be due to the fact that women are rarely considered credit worthy because they have no collateral (Yisehak 2008). The study shows that majority of women in livestock production (61.11%) had between 11-20 years of experience; the implication is that women in the study area are familiar with livestock production. The major motives for keeping Livestock were essentially for commercial purposes and home consumption. However 40% of the respondents indicated that they kept livestock for commercial purposes only.  

Level of women participation in livestock production

The results from Table 2 shows that feeding of animals (mean =2.94), cleaning of pens, cages (mean = 2.90), and watering (mean =2.90) are the livestock management practices that women always participated in. This finding is similar to that of Aqeela et al (2008) that women participate in various activities of livestock management such as fodder cutting, watering and feeding of animals, animal shed cleaning, milking and dung cake making.

Women rarely participated in activities such as tethering (mean = 2.36), culling/isolation of sick animals (mean = 2.20), diagnosing disease (mean=2.18), vaccination (mean = 2.20), construction/fencing (mean = 2.28), marketing (mean = 2.11), and record keeping (mean = 2.30). This finding agrees with that of Bayola and Intong (2006) that women are moderately involved in maintaining sanitation and in tethering animals inside shed at night. Women in the study area never participated in activities such as castration (mean = 1.12). The grand mean for the participation index (mean = 2.15) indicates that women in the study area rarely participated in livestock production.   

Factors affecting women participation in livestock production

The result in table 3 indicates that 60% of the variation in the factors affecting women’s involvement in livestock production as sampled was explained by the independent variables included in the model.

The study revealed that there was positive and significant relationship between women involvement in livestock production and education, access to credit, income and cooperative participation. Access to credit was significant (P<0.1), which means that the more the women have access to credit, the more a tendency for them to participate in livestock production. This finding agrees with that of Yisehak (2008) that access to credit and capital will increase the participation of women and their efficiency in livestock production. Education is another factor influencing women’s participation (P<0.05), that is the higher the level of education the more the tendency to take the risk in livestock production, since the idea and knowledge will be there to help succeed. Cooperative participation was significant (P<0.01) that is the more the women participated in cooperative societies, the better the idea, knowledge and benefits derived from among members. Income was significant (P<0.01) and positive, this indicates that the higher the income the higher the tendency for the women to participate in livestock production.  The types of Livestock kept by women in livestock production are presented in Table 4.

The majority of the women in livestock production kept poultry as their major livestock enterprise; this was followed by goat and sheep production. This finding tallies with that of Beth (2001) that women claims smaller species such as poultry, goat, sheep rather than cattle, camel, or buffalo since the initial cost are lower, profit may be low, but so are the risks, and men are less likely to interfere.   

Constraints faced by women in livestock production

The result (Table 5), shows that the major constraint to women involvement in livestock production was inadequate capital which ranked first followed by pre-occupation with household chores.

Yisehak (2008) reported that women in agricultural sector are involved in home production activities which involve child care, food preparation, and carrying of water and fuel. Dominance by male ranked third. The World Bank (1991) pointed out that if some training are organised by different agencies, the rural women are not permitted to participate by the male member due to nature of their sex discriminatory society. Other constraints are: involvement in crop production, cultural/religious belief, involvement in non- farm activities and inadequate know-how.

Conclusion and recommendations 

The majority of the women rarely participated in Livestock production. The major factors affecting their participation were inadequate capital, pre-occupation with household chores and dominance by men. The following recommendations are hereby made.

• The women should be linked with micro finance banks in order to have access to capital which can be used to increase their level of participation in livestock production.

  
  

• There is a need to identify the training needs of women involved in livestock production.

  
  

• The men should be encouraged to assist their women (wives) so that they can have more time to participate in livestock production

References 

Aqeela S, Tanvir A, Munir A, and Muhammad Z. 2005 Gender Participation in Livestock Production Activities and their Consumption trend of Proteineous Diet in TEHSIL FATEH JUNG. Pakistan Journal of Agricultural Science 42: 3-4 http://pakjas.com.pk/upload/12889_..pdf

Bayola D L and Intong J D 2006  Participation by Women and Children in Livestock Production in Bukidnon Province, Southern Philippines.

Beth A M 2001 Rights to Livestock Production.2020 Focus No. 06.Pp 1-4.

Ekwachi S A 1991 Welcome Address at the National Workshop for Women in Agriculture, held in FACU Headquarters, Sheda, Abuja, Nigeria.

Horeinstein N 1989 Women and Food Security in Kenya. WID Working Paper.: World Bank. Washington DC

International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) 1994 Women Livestock Managers in The third World: Focus on technical Issues Related to Gender Roles in Livestock Production, Staff Working Paper 18, Rome. http://www.ifad.org/gender/thematic/livestock/live_2.htm

Mgbada J U 2002 Production of Staple Crops by Rural Women in Enugu and Ebonyi States: Lessons for Enhancing Poverty Alleviation Programmes. In: Olowu T A (Editor) Agricultural Extension and Poverty Alleviation in Nigeria. Proceeding of the Agricultural Extension Society of Nigeria .pp: 10-12

Nasarawa State Ministry of Information 2006 Lafia, Nasarawa State, Federal Republic of Nigeria

National Population Commission 2006 National population and housing census Abuja Federal republic of Nigeria

Quisumbing A 1994 Gender Differences in Agricultural Productivity: A Survey of Empirical Evidence. Discussion Paper Series No.36, Washington D.C: Education and Social Policy Department, World Bank. http://www.ifpri.org/sites/default/files/publications/dp05.pdf

Rahman S A 2004 Gender Differential in Labour Contribution and Productivity in Farm Production Empirical Evidence from Kaduna State of Nigeria. Paper Presented at the National Conference on Family held at New Theatre Complex. Benue State University, Makurdi, Nigeria. 1^st-5^th March.

Rahman S A and Haruna I M 1999 Determinants of Women Economy Contribution to the Farm Sector in Nasarawa State, Nigeria. A Paper Presented at the National Workshop of Society for International Development held at: Institute of Administration, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria.

Saito K 1992 Raising the Productivity of Women Farmers in Sub-Sahara Africa Overview Report vol.1 Washington: Population and Human Resources Development, World Bank.

Tanko N M 1994 Contribution of Rural Women to Agricultural Planning and Economics of Developments in Nigeria, In: Ikpi A E and Olayemi J K (Editors) Winrock International for Agricultural Development .pp:5-6.

World Bank 1991 Gender and Poverty in India The World Bank, Washington, D.C.

Yisehak K 2008 Gender Responsibility in Small Holder Mixed-Crop Livestock Production System of Jimma Zone, South West Ethiopia. Livestock Research for Rural Development. Volume 20, Article #11. Retrieved October 7, 2009 from http://www.lrrd.org/lrrd20/1/yise20011.htm

Received 7 October 2009; Accepted 21 October 2009; Published 3 December 2009

Go to top