Impact Of Yam Entrepreneurial Activities On Livelihood Of Farmers In Ekiti State Nigeria

Globally, entrepreneurship skills development is regarded as one of the sustainable ways out of poverty. Hence, agriculture experts have expressed the need for more empirical studies in agricultural entrepreneurship as a necessity for effective agricultural extension policy process that will translate to improved agricultural production enterprises and sustainable livelihood of rural dwellers. Yam farming is widely practiced for livelihood in Ekiti State, therefore this study examined the impact of yam entrepreneurial activities on livelihood of farmers in Ekiti State, Nigeria. The objectives were to: (i) describe the socio-economic characteristics of yam farmers; (ii) examine the yam entrepreneurial activities of the farmers; (iii) assess the perceived level of influence of yam entrepreneurial activities on access to livelihood assets of farmers; (iv) investigate the knowledge level of yam entrepreneurial skills of farmers; (v) examine the capacity building needs of farmers on yam entrepreneurial skills; and (vi) identify the constraints to yam entrepreneurial activities of farmers.rnA two-stage random sampling technique was used to select 640 respondents from the list of contact yam farmers from Ekiti State Agricultural Development Programme (ADP). Ekiti State ADP consists of 16 blocks. First stage involved a random selection of 2 farming communities from each block. Second stage involved a random selection of 20 yam farmers from selected communities making a total sample size of 640. Data were collected through interview schedule. Only 580 of the instrument were retrieved and analysed with both descriptive and inferential statistics including frequency counts and Multiple Regression Analysis at 0.05 level of significance.rnThe findings of the study were that:rn majority of the respondents (72.8%) were male, 67.5% literates with mean of 30 years of farming experience and average farm net income of N3,738,650 per season;rn yam entrepreneurial activities of respondents were marketing (73.8%), transporting (56.3%) and processing (47.8%);rn about 98.8% of the respondents had positive attitude towards yam entrepreneurial activities and it was perceived to have medium level of influence on access to livelihood assets (grand mean= 0.44);rn majority (62.6%) of the respondents had low knowledge level of yam entrepreneurial skills;rn capacity building skills were needed in identifying market opportunities of yam enterprises (X ̅=2.66), sourcing for machinery (X ̅=1.85), sourcing for fund (X ̅=1.75), record keeping (X ̅=2.44), planning of tasks (X ̅=2.26), risk management (X ̅=1.22), and communication and negotiation skills (X ̅=2.36);rn constraints to yam entrepreneurial activities include destruction of yam farms by cattle/herdsmen (X ̅=1.45), unstable pricing of yam (X ̅=1.14), and frequent illness (X ̅=1.13); andrn participation in yam entrepreneurial activities identified had positive significant (p < 0.05) impact to respondents’ livelihood.rnThe study concluded that yam entrepreneurial activities had played significant role in accessing livelihood assets among farmers in Ekiti State. It is therefore recommended that extension agents should train yam farmers in the needed areas of entrepreneurial skills such as marketing, sourcing for machinery and risk management.

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