Socio-economic analysis of charcoal processing among household in Ibarapa North Local Government of Oyo State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study was carried out to investigate the processing of charcoal in Ibarapa North local Government Area Oyo State. The study also investigated  the processing techniques and socio economic characteristics of the respondents. The primary data used in this study were obtained by structure  questionnaire which were administered to three (3) villages in Ibarapa North local Government Area includes Ayete, Igangan and Tapa, Ninety (90) questionnaires were administered to the three villages. Data were analyzed using the descriptive analysis such as frequency tables, percentage and regression analysis.About 88% were married, while 53% of the respondents had primary school certificate. It was also shown that 41.1% of the respondents’ source their capital from bank loan, 36.3 % of the respondents use scale as means of measuring the quantity of charcoal and the  factors affecting charcoal processing was in-adequate finance which is about 91.1%. The result also shows that charcoal business is not a capital intensive business, very cheap to embark on, but where the producers encounter a lot of problem were transportation, labour,and equipment which stampede effective flow of products to the market. Therefore, it is recommended that there is need to improved processing to make charcoal more efficient, cheap and readily available to generality of Nigerian populace by looking into the problems associated with the charcoal processing in the study area.

Key words: Socio-economics, processing, charcoal, household