Authors : M.O. Raufu, I.O. Oyewo, T.S. Oyedele and O.E. Ogunlana
Abstract: The outbreak of Avian Influenza in Nigeria creates a serious concern for poultry farms, vertinary doctors and the government as a whole. The fall in sales of poultry products and income generated from the enterprise inform the need to study the economic implication of the disease on poultry farmers in Ogun State Nigeria. A multi-stage sampling technique was used. The farmers in the selected zones were stratified into those with affected and non-affected farms. Forty of the affected farms are purposively selected, while forty unaffected farms are randomly selected across the zones making a total of 80 sample used for the study. Data collected by the use of structured questionnaire were subjected to descriptive, budgetary and inferential statistics. The results revealed that majority of the farmers are male for the two categories and falls within the age range of 41-50 years. Some (5%) of the farmers of the affected farms still have no primary education, while all the farmers of the unaffected farm sampled have at least a primary education. The Ordinary Least Square (OLS) results show that for the unaffected farms, age of the farmers is significant at 10% level and positively related to their income, while for the affected farms cost of medication is significant at 1% and positively related to income of the farmers. For the pooled data, the result indicated that years of experience and bird populations are positive and statistically significant at 5 and 1% level, respectively. From the F-test result it was concluded that there is significant different between the socio-economic characteristics and level of income of the affected and unaffected poultry farms. The encouragement of younger people into poultry business as well as education of poultry farmers particularly farmers of the affected farms are strongly recommended.
M.O. Raufu, I.O. Oyewo, T.S. Oyedele and O.E. Ogunlana, 2009. Economic Implication of Avian Influenza on Poultry Farmers in Ogun State, Nigeria. The Social Sciences, 4: 644-648.