Analysis of Non-adoption and Discontinuance of Improved Oil Palm Fruit Processing Technology in Kogi State, North Central Nigeria

Abstract

The study analyzed non-adoption and discontinuance of improved oil palm fruit processing technology in Kogi State, North central Nigeria. Using purposive multi-stage sampling technique, a sample of 240 oil palm fruit processors was taken from three agricultural zones of the study area to represent the population. Structured questionnaire was used to collect the data for the study. Organization and description of data were realized by the use of frequency distribution table, percentage, ranking and mean. The findings indicated that significant proportion (60.4%) of the respondents were female with a mean age of 43 years and an average household size of 8 persons. Seventy-three percent of the respondents were married, while 82.5% had formal education. The oil palm processors had 16 years of processing experience; 62.5% of the respondents had less than 5 extension contacts annually. Majority (63.8%) and 2.5% of the respondents did not adopt and discontinue use of the improved oil palm fruit processing technology respectively. Out of 153 respondents that did not adopt the technology, 68.6% and 67.3% gave their non-adoption reasons as high cost of machine and low level of extension visits respectively. Also, 100.0% of the respondents that discontinued the use of the technology gave high cost of machine as their reason, while 92.8% and 78.6% felt they had low level of extension visits and poor quality of oil produced using the machine respectively. Based on the findings of the study, it was recommended that the improved oil palm fruit processing machine should be made affordable to processors by ways of both governmental and manufacturers subsidy policies to encourage prospective adoption of the technologies among others.