Assessment of Use of Improved Production Technologies among Goat Farmers in Abia State Nigeria

The study provided an empirical evidence on the use of improved goat production technologies among rural farmers in Abia State, Nigeria. The specific objectives of the study were to describe the socioeconomic characteristics of the respondent, ascertain the extent of use of improved goat production technologies, determine factors influencing use of improved goat production technologies and identify the constraint to access and use of improved goat production technologies in the study area. A multi-stage random sampling technique was adopted in selecting the sample size 120 respondents. Data for the study were collected through the use of questionnaire. The data collected for the study were analysed with both descriptive and inferential statistics. The result of the socioeconomic characteristics revealed the mean age of the respondents was 43 years, majority 69.16% of the respondents were married, about 45% had secondary education, a mean household size of 6 persons, majority 66.67% were farmers, mean years of arming experience at 5.7 years, mean income of #102,000, mean farm size of 11 goats and majority (78.33%) of respondents were non- members of cooperative societies. The result on extent of use of improved goat production technologies, revealed that the respondents highly used most of improved goat production technologies as affirmed with the grand mean of = 3.20. On constraint to use of improved goat production technologies, all the respondents 100% agreed that lack of access to credit was a constraint to use, 100% agrees on lack of credibility from source of technological information, 99.2% agreed that they were afraid of taking risk, 93.3% agreed on difficulty in technology application among others. The OLS regression estimates of the influence of socioeconomic characteristics the respondents on the use of improved goat production technologies in the study area, revealed that age at 10%, education at 1%, household size at 1%, farming experience at 1%, farm size at 1%, income at 1% and access to credit at 5% were the determinants of use of improved goat production technologies in the study area and the null hypotheses rejected. In conclusion, greater use of available improved technologies will promote productivity, and therefore there is need for proper sensitization and awareness by relevant agencies. The study recommended that credit should be made available to farmers by relevant governmental and non- governmental agencies to increase the level of use of available improved technologies.