ASSESSMENT OF THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF SMALL-SCALE BROILER PRODUCTION TO FARMERS’ FOOD SECURITY IN KADUNA STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

The challenges of food insecurity and hunger in Nigeria have continued to receive attention from experts and the government. To increase both protein intake and food security, the government called for urgent need to increase broiler production at both household and commercial holdings. Primary data obtained in year 2020, from 205 randomly selected broiler farmers was analyzed using descriptive statistics and Tobit regression model. This study assessed small-scale broiler production’s contribution to farmers’ food security in Kaduna state, Nigeria. The result showed that mean age was 40 years and majority of the farmers (89.4%) had household size ranged from 1 – 10 persons. In addition, about 73.8% were members of a cooperative society, about 40.5% of the farmers did not have access to extension service while about 78 % of the farmers have access to credit. About 75.10 percent of broiler farming households were found to be food secure. Of the food insecure households, 6.70 % were marginally food insecure, 4.20 % moderately food insecure and 14.00 % severely food insecure. The regression results showed that coefficients of level of education (0.872), access to credit (0.113), membership of association (0.068), cost of day-old chicks (0.363), cost of feed (0812), cost of labour (-2.211), cost of drugs (-0.263) and income from broiler (0.161) were found to be significant contributing to the food security status of the broiler farming households. Finally, broiler farmers attested to the fact that; lack of constant market (95.8%), high cost of feed (92.7%), high cost of input (88%), and price fluctuations (86.9%) are most severe constrains militating the chances of increasing broiler production. Built on the findings of the study it can be concluded that the proportion of food secure broiler farmers are more than the food insecure broiler farmers in the study area. Education, cost of feed and income from broiler production are variables that significantly influences broiler farmers’ food security status. Therefore, farmers should adopt self-feed formulation using locally available resources that will reduce the cost of feeding and increase their profit margin and thereby their food security status.