Cultural factors affecting livelihood strategies of rural households in southeast Nigeria: implication for agricultural transformation agenda

Cultural issues have had significant influence in rural household economies, which over the years depend strongly on agriculture. Such issues come to the fore in the face of emerging innovations for agricultural transformation. The study analyzed the cultural factors affecting livelihood strategies of rural households in Southeast Nigeria, highlighting their implication for Agricultural transformation agenda. The specific objectives of the study were to identify the predominant livelihood strategies of rural households and analyze the cultural factors affecting livelihood strategies of rural households in the study area. With the aid of a structured and validated interview schedule, data were collected from a sample size of 180 household heads selected from a population of 754,702 household heads in the study area using a 5-stage random sampling procedure. The statistical tools used in data analysis included mean, frequencies, percentages and factor analysis. The result indicated that the predominant agricultural livelihood strategies found among rural households in southeast Nigeria includes crop farming, livestock farming, farm labour, farm product processing, among others while the predominant non-agricultural livelihood strategies includes petty trading, remittances from relatives, civil service among others. The cultural factors affecting livelihood strategies of rural households the study area were identified as: exclusive traditional role of household heads as income earner (mean = 2.92, the pressure of large household size on household resource base limits resource mobilization (mean = 3.21), gender gaps in access to productive factors (mean = 3.15), limited women involvement in productive activities (mean = 2.89), limited women access to social services and amenities (mean = 2.89), exclusive property rights for male members of the household (mean = 3.19), among others. Factor analysis result showed 3 major factor loadings that affect livelihood strategies of rural households in the study area as high dependency on household head, culture-based inequalities, and traditional gender-based property rights. It is therefore recommended that land use decree, tenancy and other property rights should be reviewed, modified and introduced into rural areas to improve access to land and other productive resources especially to enable women and youth pursue their livelihood interests, which depend critically on such resources.