Analysis of table egg production as a livelihood activity in Ekiti state

Abstract

This paper examines table egg production, as a livelihood activity in Ekiti Stat, Nigeriae Table egg production needs to be economically analyzed to determine its profitability. To be able to achieve this, variables such as socio-economics characteristics of the producers, cost and returns of table egg activity, constraints of production need to be considered. The study was conducted in Ekiti State, Nigeria.Eighty table egg producers who were available at poultry farmers’ monthly meeting at the time of data collection were purposively sampled for the study. Questionnaire was used to collect data and this was analyzed using frequency count, percentages, linear regression was also used. The result showed that average age of the respondents was 43 years. All the respondents have formal education. Sixty-one point two percent of respondents were male while 38.8% were female, most (81.2%) of the respondents use deep litter system. The result of regression analysis showed that 30.7% of the variation in returns from table egg production was explained by the independent variables. These comprised of number of numbers of birds kept (0.262) and type of production system used (0.214), which were significant at 5% level. Also, hired labour (0.345) was significant at 1% level. However, family labour (-0.280) had a negative coefficient and significant at 5% level.