The study investigated the level of involvement of male and female farmers in small scale production and processing of cassava in Abia State, Nigeria. The objectives of the study were to determine the socioeconomic profile of the cassava farmers, identify the constraints in cassava production and suggest the possible remedies to improve cassava production in the study area. The result revealed that despite the fact that both male and female farmers were actively involved in cassava production and processing, but in terms of labour, the women dominated in most of the activities like planting, weeding and harvesting of cassava. There is also a significant difference in the labour involvement both in production and processing. It also revealed that land ownership was one of the major problems in the area. Women do not own land according to the tradition, and this discourages agricultural production among women. Other constraint like lack of input, lack of fund and high cost of labour were militating against cassava output in Abia State, Nigeria. Based on the constraints, the farmers suggested ways to improve cassava production in the study area. The major suggestions were provision of input, provision of agricultural subsidy/labour. It was recommended that state government should address the problem of farmers by assisting them with improved inputs. Loans should be given to farmers. Land ownership in the rural areas should be addressed by government so that everybody will have equal right to land ownership.

The main focus of this paper was to: (i) determine the impact of women’s share of household income on the pattern of expenditure on various categories of basic goods in southeast Nigeria; (ii) explain the pattern of household expenditure using the bargaining model of household behaviour; and (iii) extrapolate the results to the policy implications of gender-specific control of household incomes. We used cross-sectional household data elicited from a sample of 400 households constituting 2 520 members collected from November 2016 to March 2017 and disaggregated by gender. We found that increasing women’s share of incomes raises the budget share for food, children’s clothes, children’s school fees, fuel for household services and other expenditure, although not significantly with the budget shares for alcohol and meals out of the home. Our results suggest that any strategy by policymakers in southeast Nigeria to improve any of the expenditure items should target the empowerment of the gender that will more likely spend their money on the items concerned.

The study examined the impact of entrepreneurship training on rural poultry farmers' adoption of improved management practices in Enugu State, Nigeria. Data were collected from two hundreds randomly selected rural poultry farmers that were trained on entrepreneurship by use of questionnaire. Data were analyzed with both descriptive and inferential statistics. Results showed that before the training, majority (70%) of the rural poultry farmers were unaware of some of the improved management practices like record-keeping, consulting veterinary doctors, vaccination, debeaking, etc. However, after the training, all the farmers (100%) were aware of the management practices and majority (85%) of poultry farmers adopted these practices. Educational level (t=3.3501), farming experience (t=2.9511), income level (t=2.6188) as well as farm size (t=2.8183) were found highly significant and positively related to farmers adoption of the improved poultry management practices. Constraints identified were high cost of inputs (80%), low capital outlay (95%), difficulty in obtaining loan (80%) and poor extension (75%) visits. Government should organize more entrepreneurial training and provide soft loan to farmers as to facilitate adoption of the improved management practices thereby improving poultry meat supply and ensuring food security.

No abstract

This paper identified socioeconomic factors affecting their revenue from crop production. It is based on farm level data collected in South East Nigeria from 400 randomly selected farm units with women farmers. Results of the analysis show that household socioeconomic factors that increased their revenue were occupation, farm experience and household size. Participation in planting and harvesting also increased their revenue. Also, the societal constraint militating against women's revenue were lack of finance, lack of improved inputs, lack of storage facilities, lack of credit access, land tenure problem, poor road network. These observations underscored the need for special programmes that empower and recognize women especially through education, finance and information.