Social Factors Influencing Small Ruminant Livestock Production in Offa Local Government Area of Kwara State

Abstract

Livestock production is an instrument for socio-economic change to improved income and quality of life. The study was carried out to investigate the social factors influencing small ruminant livestock production in Offa local government area of Kwara State, Nigeria. Random sampling technique was used to sample 120 small ruminant livestock farmers in the study area while 101 questionnaires were retrieved. The data collected were subjected to statistical analysis using the frequency table, simple percentage, and chi-square. 76.2% and 23.8% respectively represent the percentage of male and female respondents. The ages of the respondents were 50-59 years (4.0%), 40-49 years (25.7%), 30-39 years (39.6%) and 20-29 years (30.7%). 11.9% of the respondents were into goat production only, 44.6% were into sheep production only while 43.6% were into both sheep and goat production. Farming system (54.5%), farm size (59.4%), and preference for sheep and goat meat (70.3%) were the social factors that had minor influence while gender (71.3%), ethnic affiliation (88.1%), age (84.2%), land ownership (57.4%), farm size (59.4%) and flock management (56.4%) had no influence on small ruminant livestock production in the study area.  Majority of the respondents sees unavailability of funds, theft, accessibility to market; no credit facilities’ and transportation problem are not constraints facing small ruminant livestock animals in the study area. There was no significant difference among sex (0.385), marital status (0.177), age (0.112), education (0.144), tribe (0.920), and religion (0.069) when compared to the management systems used by small ruminant livestock farmers at 5% level of significance. Feeds, modern equipment, medication, and vaccination should be available and accessible for small ruminant livestock farmers to improve the productivity of the animals.