Assessment of women participation in processing and marketing of poultry products in Rivers State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study assessed women participation in processing and marketing of poultry products in Rivers State, Nigeria. Three specific objectives and three hypotheses  were stated to guide the study. A simple random sampling technique was used to select 3 Local Government Areas (LGA), 18 communities and 108 women for the  study. Descriptive statistics such as percentage and weighted mean scores were used to analyze the data. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to test the  hypotheses. The findings indicated that women participation in processing of poultry products in the study area was low. Although, the result showed that  women in Ikwerre LGA participated in processing of poultry products more than the other two LGAs and followed by Oyigbo LGA. The result showed that:    Marketing of chicken , marketing of life birds , selling of parts of chicken and marketing of eggs were the aspects of marketing of poultry products that women in the  three LGAs participated highly. Finally, the result showed that: insecurity challenges, price fluctuation of poultry products and inadequate credits among others,  posed severe challenges to women participation in processing and marketing of poultry products in Rivers State. The study therefore recommended  among others that: Women in Rivers State should not limit themselves to only marketing of poultry products, but should diversify to production, processing and  supply of livestock feeds and equipment for more income; and Agricultural credits should be made accessible to women in livestock enterprises by the State  Government.