Determinants of adoption of improved chickens in fishing communities on Kainji Lake Shorelines of Nigeria: A Logit analysis

A O Lawal, O Adekunle*, K L Ayorinde** and T I Ibiwoye***

UK Department for International Development (DFID) Nigeria,
British High Commission10 Bobo Street, Maitama Abuja, Nigeria
a-lawal@dfid.gov.uk

Abstract

The Logit model was used in this study to determine the factors influencing the adoption of improved chickens. The current rearing of improved chickens was the outcome measured. The study was carried out among 120 fisherfolk households in four fishing villages, comprising two villages from each of the eastern and western shorelines of the Kainji Lake, Nigeria.

Results show that 54% of the fisherfolk households adopted improved chicken production, and annual income from chickens was significantly higher (P<0.05) in adopting, than in non-adopting households. Household heads with longer years of improved chicken rearing experience, those with larger flock sizes as well as those who use purchased inputs such as drugs and vaccines and who derive more income from the sale of chickens, are more likely to adopt. Contact with extension services and the perception that improved chickens produces more off springs also significantly affected the probability that a fisherfolk would adopt improved chicken production, in a positive way.

Households in which women spend more time than husbands attending chickens and those in which there is higher loss of chickens due to disease, are less likely to adopt.

Keywords: Cockerel, fisherfolks, freshwater fisheries, poultry, socio-economic

Introduction

Data presented by Ita (1993) show that Kainji Lake was over-fished in the past. Evidence provided includes the decline of catches in larger mesh nets and the consistently higher catches in small mesh nets, as well as the effect of high concentration of fishermen on catch per unit effort. A major recommendation was putting in place, a management strategy directed at the control of the fishing population through registration and licensing of fishermen, in order to ultimately control the number of people registered to fish on the lake.

Between 1985 and 1990, the states bordering the lake then had promulgated their fisheries edicts to this effect but these edicts were not enforced, hence the fishery was still largely unregulated. In 1995, the Nigerian-German Kainji Lake Fisheries Promotion Project (KLFPP) made recommendations to state Governments (Niger and Kebbi) to sign into law, a Fisheries Edict and Fisheries Rules and Regulations. The main aim of the Fisheries Law was the sustainable management of the fishery resources of Kainji Lake. It contained measures aimed at a reduction in fishing due to depleting stocks. For the Lake fisheries management purposes, the project established the Kainji Lake Fisheries Management and Conservation Unit (KLFMCU) with members drawn from the fisherfolks, the traditional authorities, the State Fisheries divisions and the National Institute for Freshwater Fisheries Research, New Bussa, Nigeria. Major responsibility of this unit is to implement the Fisheries Law.

In order to ensure cooperation from the fishing communities and to compensate for short term income losses by boosting income from alternative sources, the KLFPP identified "improved poultry keeping" as suitable for introduction around Kainji Lake (Ayeni and Mdaihli 1997). In the long term, it was believed that the program would lead to increases in income, especially of female members of the fishing families, since poultry is kept in the villages mainly by women.

The strategy chosen was aimed at upgrading in both adult sizes and egg production of local domestic chickens through cross breeding of the slow growing and less productive local hens with the fast growing, improved stock of commercial cockerels (Ayorinde 1997). Between 1997 and 2001, the KLFPP raised and distributed about 5000 improved cockerels to more than 100 communities along the shorelines of the lake.

Although not all fisherfolks in all the communities benefited from this distribution, it was however expected that non beneficiaries would see the benefits of keeping improved chickens and eventually adopt its production. The objective of this paper is to examine the socio-economic, institutional and technology related factors that determine the adoption or non adoption of improved chickens by fisherfolks.
 

Materials and methods

Data source

The Kainji Lake, resulting from the damming of the River Niger is the largest artificial lake in Nigeria and is well known for fisheries products. Lake Kainji is situated between latitudes 9^o 50' - 10^o 57' North and longitudes 4^o 25' - 4^o 45' East. The lake was impounded on 2^nd August 1968 and it is 136.8 km in length and 24.1 km maximum width. Its surface area has been variously quoted as approximately 1,300 km². At full volume, the water is at the altitude 142 m and at low volume the water is at the 133 m level (Abiodun 2003).

The study was carried out in four fishing communities; two from each of the eastern (Sakejikinka and Anfani) and western shorelines (Tungan Wadata and Tungan Alhaji Dan Baba) of the Kainji Lake where improved chickens were distributed between 1998 and 2001. A two-stage random sampling technique was used to select a sample of 120 fisherfolks, comprising 60 fisherfolks from each area. The first stage of the sampling involved the stratification of the lake into western and eastern shorelines to select two communities each. A further stratification involved putting fisherfolks into two strata of beneficiary and non beneficiary. The second stage of the sampling involved selection of respondents. An equal random sample of 15 was drawn from each of benefiting and non benefiting fisherfolks strata, making 30 per community.

The study took place between November 2006 and March 2007, and data collection involved a combination of household schedules, focus group discussions, and field observations. The data was analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences.

Empirical model specification

Empirical literature has generally attempted to analyse observed adoption patterns by focusing on a set of factors i) socio-economic characteristics of adopters, ii) structural and institutional factors, and iii) technology characteristics or attributes of innovations as perceived by farmers.

According to Pannell et al (2006), when adoption is viewed as a social process, it becomes clear that one should expect adoption behaviour to be influenced by the personality of the decision maker, their social networks, personal circumstances and family situation. It seems that in the empirical literature every measurable characteristic of farms and farmers has been found to be statistically related to some measure of adoption of some innovation

In this study, the Logit model was used to investigate the determinants of the current raising status, i.e., whether a fisherfolk is currently raising improved chickens, or not. This approach is similar to that taken by Polson and Spencer (1991), Adesina and Baidu-Ferson (1995), and Sanginga (1998). The dependent variable is the fisherfolks' adoption of improved chickens and is specified in the Logit equation as the current raising of improved chickens by the fisherfolk, measured as a dummy variable. Definition of the variables in the Logit equation is presented in table 1 below.

Empirical results and discussion

Results of the Logit regressions are presented in table 2 and it shows that a number of socioeconomic, structural and institutional factors, as well as fisherfolks' perceptions of the attributes of improved chickens are significant determinants of adoption. MATURE (fisherfolks' assessment of maturity time of chickens) was dropped from the list during analysis. Overall, a total of 65 households (54.2%) were keeping improved chickens at the time of the study. The likelihood of adoption was very good as a fisherfolk household had between 86 - 100% predicted probability of adopting improved chickens, based on the three separate model estimations.

Table 2 below shows that adoption of improved chicken production by households is affected significantly by experience in keeping improved chickens (+), flock size (+), time spent by household members attending to chickens (-), income from sale of chickens (+), number of chickens that died in the last year (-), and the use of purchased inputs (feeds, drugs and vaccines) (+).

The mean number of years of keeping improved chickens was 4.4 years across the entire sample and 6.77 years among those that currently have improved chickens in their flocks. Teklewold et al (2006) in their work observed that number of years since adopting exotic poultry breed affects the intensity of adoption because it is expected that with more years of experience there is an opportunity for work related learning.

Mean flock size and income are significantly higher and number of chickens that died in the last one year, are significantly lower in households keeping, than in households not keeping improved chickens. Similarly, the mean number of chickens consumed or given out as gifts in households keeping improved chickens is more than for households not keeping, although not significant (table 3 below).

Expectedly, the loss of chickens due to disease is a disincentive for adoption. Indeed, results of the survey showed that only 4% of the households perceived improved chickens as better than local chickens in disease resistance. Whereas 33% of the households said there was no difference, 63% of the households thought that local chickens were better.

The use of purchased inputs was generally low. Only 6% of the households use commercial feeds, while about 29% of the households use purchased drugs and vaccines. All of these households were those keeping improved chickens. With the use of drugs and vaccines, there is a higher chance of survival of chickens under disease situations and this would eventually impact on the number that can be sold, and hence, income derivable from chickens.

In 59% of the households, women spend more time caring for chickens than men, compared with 33% of the households, where men and women spend about the same time. In 8% of the households, men do not spend any time at all attending chickens. The negative sign on the estimate for time spent attending to chickens suggest that when women spend more time attending to chickens than men, it is a disincentive for adoption. A breakdown of households where women spend more time than men showed that 48% were adopters, while 52% were non adopters, whereas for households, in which care for chickens is shared equally, 80% are adopters and 20% are non adopters.

The structural and institutional factors of village location and extension contact significantly affect adoption of improved chicken production by households in a positive way. The estimate for village location suggests that nearness to market is an incentive for adoption. This observation is similar to the works of Feder and Umali (1993) and Teklewold et al (2006) who reported that market access infrastructure affects adoption by offering good sales opportunities and adequate transport facilities, and also offering the incentives for the farmer to ensure that production is improved. Focus group discussions with respondents showed that all the fisherfolks that are non project beneficiaries bought improved chickens from the nearest markets, and introduced these into their flocks.

The sign on the parameter estimate for extension contact indicate that it affects adoption in a positive way, and is thus an incentive for adoption. This is comparable to the results of similar studies such as those by Polson and Spencer (1991), Alonge (1993) and Sanginga (1998) that found a positive significant relationship between extension contact and farmers' adoption of technologies. Extension contact was 55% across the whole sample with a breakdown showing that 59% were adopting households compared with 41% non adopting households.

The perception that improved chickens gives more off springs significantly affected adoption in a positive way. This is expected because the more the off springs produced, the more chickens are available for sale and hence benefits derivable from chicken production.
 

Conclusions

• The Logit regression model has been used to identify the determinants of adoption of improved chickens and a number of variables have been found to significantly determine the probability of adoption and hence the benefits derivable from improved chicken production. Unlike linear models, the Logit model has the advantage of the fact that it allows non adopters to be included in the analysis and this provides an insight into the determinants of the behaviours of adopters relative to non adopters.

• Results show that, with respect to socioeconomic variables, fisherfolk households with larger chicken flock sizes, and who derive more income from the sale of chickens, as well as those with more experience in keeping improved chickens and who use more commercial feeds, drugs and vaccines are significantly more likely to adopt improved chicken production. However, households in which women spend more time caring for chickens and those that have lost more chickens to disease, are significantly less likely to adopt improved chicken production.
• With respect to structural factors, households in villages that are close to markets and those having contact with extension services are significantly more likely to adopt improved chicken production. In addition, when a household perceives that improved chickens gives more off springs than local chickens, it is significantly more likely to adopt improved chicken production.
• In conclusion, the major constraint to adoption, i.e., death of chickens due to disease, needs to be addressed in order to meet KLFPP's objective and focus of boosting alternative income sources for fisherfolks especially women. The fisherfolks expressed ignorance at what to do in major disease outbreaks, apart from using local remedies. To overcome this, the project and extension services need to include messages and tips for disease prevention and control, in their messages.

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