An Analysis of Benefit and Cost of Local Chicken Production By the Adopters and on– Adopters of ewcastle Disease Vaccination in Kogi – State, Nigeria

Abstract

Newcastle disease (ND) has high seroprevalence rate and inflicts heavy economic losses on poultry as often the case in rural poultry production. This study examined the socialeconomic characteristics of the respondents and the benefit/ cost analysis of rural chicken farmers in two local council areas of Kogi State of igeria which were selected by purposive sampling and 122 respondents were administered structured questionnaires. They comprised 61 farmers’ tagged adopters of immunization against ND by vaccinations and 61 non-adopters. Educational status and farming experience were found to influence adoption of ND vaccination as immunization against ewcastle disease which in turn had positive and significant (P<0.05) influence on the income of rural chicken farmers in Lokoja and Dekina Local Government Areas selected for the study. Flock size of the vaccinated chickens also significantly (P<0.01) influenced income generation. The cost benefit ratio of the adopters was 2.42:1 as against 1.11:1 of non adopters. Cost of transportation for pooling birds to a centre for vaccination was responsible for 9.5% of total variable cost. It is recommended that extension agents should intensify effort to educate farmers on the incremental benefit of vaccination against the disease and that government should organize the rural chicken farmers into co-operative for visitation by veterinary extension specialist to reduce cost of immunization, encourage job creation for an improved rural economy.

Key words: Benefit/Cost, Adopters, on-Adopters, ewcastle Disease, Immunization