Abstract:
The study assessed indigenous knowledge in the utilization of piper guineense with a view of deriving wealth creation among rural communities in Ondo State, Nigeria. Five Local Government Areas (LGAs) out of 18 LGAs in the study area were randomly selected. Four rural communities in each LGA were also randomly selected to make a total of twenty rural communities in the study area. Semi-structured questionnaire were used to obtain information from 20 randomly selected households in each sampled communities. The result of the study showed that in Ifedore LGA, 46% of the respondents derived income from the drying knowledge of Piper guineensis while 24% derived medicinal value from it from drying knowledge. Thirty nine percent of the respondents are Yoruba that utilized Piper guineensis and derived income from it while 0% of Hausa utilized Piper guineensis and 40% of Effik derived income from the utilization of Piper guineensis. In Irele LGA, 51% of the respondents derived medicinal value from the use of Piper guineensis. In Akoko North East LGA, 47% of the respondents used P. guineensis as preservative why 30% of the respondents in the same LGA used P. guineensis as food. Chi-square test (p> 0.05) showed that there is no significant association between indigenous knowledge and wealth created from the utilization of P. guineensis in the study area. In the same vein chi-square test (p> 0.05) shows that there is no significant association between educational levels of respondents and wealth created from P. guineensis in the study area. Ninety nine percent of the respondents in Ifedore LGA agreed that they faced problems during utilization of Piper guineensis while 1% said they did not face any problem. Majority of the respondents faced the problem of scarcity of P. guineensis in the study area. The reason for this is because of increased occurrence of deforestation in the study area. Deforestation affected availability of P. guineensis because the survival and growth of the species is known to be affected by shade. Government should assist the rural dwellers by encouraging incentives that will motivate them to plant on their
