Credit access and faecal management practices among poultry farmers in Ogun State, Nigeria: Implications for climate change

Abstract

This research identified the sources of credit available and utilized by the respondents, evaluated the socioeconomic factors determining farmers’ access to credit, constraints encountered by respondents and the influence of access to credit on management practices of poultry farmers in Obafemi Owode Local Government of Ogun State. The data collected from 90 poultry farmers were analyzed using descriptive statistics and the logit regression model, to evaluate the socio-economic factors determining the respondents’ access to creditand also to analyze the influence of access to credit on faecal management practices in the study area. The descriptive result showed the farmers earned less than N100, 000 monthly (mean = 61,402±12,127.17, ca. $290) and up to 48% still lacked access to credit. The major use of credit among the farmers was for operational activities (53%) which included waste management. Only 48% of the farmers had access to quality extension service and 46% do not participate in any cooperative. Despite the fact that most of the farmers were aware of impact of farming activities on climate change, about 80% still practiced open dumping of faecal waste without proper treatment because of credit constraint. The logit result (all at p < 0.05) showed that farming experience, farm size, awareness of credit source, cooperative participation, access to extension service and farm income were associated with both access to credit and farmers’ use of appropriate waste management practice. Based on the findings, it is recommended that better waste management practices among poultry farmers should be enhanced by facilitating increased access to credit and this is sine qua non to mitigating climate change. Key words: climate change, credit access, faecal management, Nigeria, poultry