Socioeconomic analysis of cattle ownership status and management systems among rural farming households in Ijebu division, Orgun state

Abstract

This paper emanates from the background that livestock farming, whether small animals or large animals, arethe mainstay of rural economies in developing Africa. A descriptive research design was adopted to investigatethe socio-economic characteristics of cattle owners/managers, ownership status, management systems adoptedby these farmers. Correlation analysis was also used to determine the relationship between certain farminghousehold’s characteristics and cattle asset as insurance in times of financial crisis. Findings showed that thelargest proportion of the respondents (43%) were between the age of 30 and 40 years. It also showed that a largeproportion of the respondents were married (87%). Cattle ownership/management was dominated by maleresidents (69%) with more than a third of the respondents (36%) having no formal education while the largerproportion of the respondents had secondary school education as their highest qualification (40%). A relativelysmall size of cattle was observed among the majority (65%) with less than 30 heads of cattle. About just a quarterof the respondents were owners of the cattle being managed on a full time basis (24%). Not more than 38% of therespondents practiced the intensive system of cattle rearing. None of the respondents was employed in the civilservice while majority of the respondents were farmers (57%). There was a significantly very strong positiverelationship between the ages of respondents and the years of experience gained in cattle rearing (p<0.01), asignificantly relatively weak negative relationship between the ages of respondents and their use of cattle as aninsurance asset (p<0.1) and a significantly relatively strong positive relationship between cattle ownership statusand the use of cattle as an insurance asset (p<0.01).