ASSESSMENT OF COPING STRATEGIES ADOPTED BY SMALL RUMINANT FARMERS DURING THE DRY SEASON IN EKITI STATE, NIGERIA.

Abstract

The study assessed how small ruminant farmers cope with dry season feed shortages through the adoption of some coping strategies in Ekiti State. The study specifically examined the farmers’ socioeconomic characteristics, perceived factors influencing adoption, level of utilization of the coping strategies, constraints faced and attitude of farmers to the use of the coping strategies. A well structured, reliable, validated and pretested interview schedule was employed in data collection. A multistage sampling technique was used in the selection of a hundred and twenty (120) respondents. The data were analysed with descriptive and inferential statistics. The result of the study revealed that the average age for the respondents was 47 years, with the females (78.3 percent) dominating small ruminant rearing in the study area. The use of stored crop residue (23.1 percent), cut and carry of fresh forage (20.3 percent), increased ration of feeds per meal for all (19.3 percent) and herd thinning (18.4 percent) were widely adopted. However, majority (80.8 percent) of the respondents had moderate level of utilization of the coping strategies. The perceived factors influencing adoption of the coping strategies were; availability of feeding materials for ruminants (𝑥̅ = 1.99), choice of management system (𝑥̅ = 1.76) and simplicity of the coping strategies method (𝑥̅ = 1.61). The study revealed that lesser percentage (34.2 percent) had favourable attitude towards the coping strategies. The study further showed that there was no significant association between farmers’ socioeconomic characteristics (age (𝑥2 = 6.81, p > 0.05), experience (𝑥2 = 1.78, p > 0.05), and stock size (𝑥2 = 0.24, p > 0.05), sex (𝑥2 = 3.27, p > 0.05), religion (𝑥2 = 0.16, p > 0.05), marital status (𝑥2 = 5.46, p > 0.05)) and utilization of the coping strategies. There was however, no significant relationship between constraints to the use of the coping strategies (r = -0.03, p = 0.72) and attitude of farmers towards the use of the coping strategies. The study concluded that the combination of coping strategies is adequate to combat the scourge of feed shortages during the dry season as they have very small number of animals. The new threat of animal theft is becoming even more challenging than feed dearth and must be quickly contested. It is recommended that diversification into food processing and planting of browse plants will further solve the problem of feed shortages during dry season.