Socio-Economic Characteristics of Dairy Cattle Farmers in Northern Nigeria

Abstract

This study examined socio-economic factors affecting improved dairy cattle farmers. A two-stage sampling procedures were adopted for the study. First, the purposive choice of the 16 States of northern Nigeria and in stage second, random sampling of 61 improved dairy farms. Questionnaire instrument was used to collect data from the respondents who were mostly the chairmen of the farms or their managers. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data. The results revealed that the mean age of the respondents was 48 years, 71% of the farmers were retired civil servants, 67% of the farmers had Bachelor Degree, the mean family size of the respondents was 11 persons per family and the mean annual income was N2, 000,113 per year. Sixty percent of the respondents had no contact with government extension workers, but 69% had knowledge of improved dairy cattle technologies through other means. Over 64% of cattle in the sampled farms were exotic breed, while 21% were crossbreed and indigenous breed constituted 15% of the total cattle in the sampled farms. The distribution of adoption level among the improved dairy cattle farmers shows that 38% adopted all the 6 and 26% adopted 3 and the mean was 4 out of the 6 technologies. Constraints identified were poor power supply, inadequacy of veterinary services and, high costs of inputs. Based on these findings, effective market outlay, virile extension services, efficient power supply and importation of exotic dairy cattle to crossbreed indigenous cattle breeds should be encouraged by government and non-governmental organizations and private individuals were recommended.

Key words: Dairy cattle, dairy farmer, socioeconomic characteristics,