Effects of cuniculture commercialization on household poverty status in south western Nigeria

Abstract

This study evaluated the effect of Cuniculture commercialization on household poverty in Osun State, Nigeria. Descriptive and inferential statistics of frequency counts, Foster-Greer-Thorbecke (FGT), Household Commercialization Index (HCI) and Tobit Regression was used to analyze data collected from 120 respondents randomly selected from the register of Rabbit Farmers and Breeders Association of Nigeria (RFABAN) of Ife/Ijesha Agricultural development Project (ADP). The results of the study show that Cuniculture is a male dominated enterprise. The modal age of respondents was 18-60 with 87.5% of respondents educated. Majority of respondents earned between NGN20000 - NGN100000 monthly from Cuniculture. The study found that 16% of respondents were poor and living below the poverty line. The HCI of Cuniculture indicates that 54.2% of production was done mainly for household consumption. Access to credit and unavailability of markets were the major constraints with Household size and access to credit influencing the commercialization of Cuniculture. The study recommends that more people be encouraged to go into Cuniculture to serve as additional income to household; rabbit farmers become more market oriented beyond their present level; they organize themselves into cooperative for access to credits and market creation and that appropriate solutions be sought for the challenges encountered.

Keywords

• Rabbit.
• Farming.
• Profitability.
• Poverty.
• Animal production.