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EXTENT OF UTILIZATION OF COCOYAM VALUE ADDED TECHNOLOGIES AMONG RURAL HOUSEHOLDS IN SOUTH-EAST NIGERIA
Abstract
The study examined the extent of utilization of cocoyam among rural households in South East Nigeria. A multi-stage random sampling procedure was employed in selecting 480 respondents for the study. Data were collected from primary sources with the use of structured questionnaires, and analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The results show that majority (75.84%) of the cocoyam farmers were females, who were married (82.27%) and attained secondary (39.27%) and tertiary (27.57%) levels of education. Many (53.03%) of the respondents were full-time farmers, who had no access to credit (75.8%) and do not belong to any social organization (61%). Many (55.6%) of the respondents had contact with extension, and earned not more than N50,000 (79%) monthly. Results show that cocoyam is utilized mainly as soup thickener (3.53, =3.44 and =3.91 for Abia, Ebonyi and Enugu States respectively). Important factors influencing utilization of cocoyam value added technologies include: age, farm size, access to credit, monthly income, and membership of social organization. The results therefore, call for land re-form and credit policies aimed allocating more land and provision of credit at little or no interest rate to cocoyam farmers who are still strong and agile. There is also need to encourage farmers to form groups/cooperatives for ease of access to technology innovations to enhance utilization of value-added cocoyam technologies.
