Information needs of commercial poultry farmers in southwestern Nigeria

Abstract

Commercial poultry farming contributes to food security and employment generation but management problems often impede optimal performance. Therefore, the study investigated information needs of commercial poultry farmers in southwestern Nigeria. Multistage sampling procedure was used in selecting 163 members of Poultry Association of Nigeria (PAN). Snowball technique was used in identifying and listing 142 non-members of PAN from which 114 were selected using simple random sampling. Data were collected using structured questionnaire and analysed using mean scores, frequency counts and percentages. The results showed that most (41.5%) commercial poultry farmers were middle-aged, males (77.7%) and educated (31.5%). Rearing of layers was predominant with mean flock size of 933 birds. The most important information need was securing credits ( =4.09), followed by identifying diseases ( = 4.03), using drugs/vaccines ( = 4.02), selecting poultry breeds ( = 3.88) and compounding feeds ( = 3.65). Poultry stakeholders should work to focus training programmes on the identified information needs in order to boost poultry productivity.