ANALYSIS OF LIVELIHOOD BENEFITS DERIVED FROM FOREST RESOURCES UTILIZATION AMONG FARMING POPULACE IN KOGI AND NIGER STATES, NIGERIA

The study analysed of livelihood benefits derived from forest resources utilization among farming populace in Kogi and Niger States, Nigeria. A multi-stage sampling technique was used to select 326 of rural populace. Data were collected using structured questionnaire and interview scheduled and analyzed using descriptive statistics (percentage, frequency and mean). The result revealed 87.1% of the rural farmers had increment in the procurement of the food items while 77.3% improvement in expenditure on cultural ceremonies. Moreover, truck N47, 852 and car N56, 763 were the most working and household assets acquired by rural populace in the last season. It was recommended that farming populace should engage in the use of forest resources in order to enhance their livelihood. Also, farming populace should utilize forest resources in order to acquire more household assets


INTRODUCTION
Forest resources are essential natural resources for rural farm households, provide them with both subsistence and market oriented livelihood strategies (Oludotun, 2015). Globally, many wood forest products like fuel wood, construction materials and non-wood forest products. Forest products are known to be essential sources of income generation for rural livelihood, expansion of farms and diversify commercial activities (Campbell et al., 2015). Income generated from farming activities is not enough to carter for household needs such as payment of children school fees, payments of hospital bills, purchase of households' items, buying of agricultural inputs, as well as cultural activities such as marriage, naming and burial ceremonies (Amulya, 2015). The aforementioned could force the rural farmers to engage in exploitation and utilisation of forest products to augment income from the farming activities in order to enhance livelihood. However, this study tend to achieve the following objectives; to examine the livelihood benefits derived from forest resources utilization in the study area identify household and working assets acquired by farming populace in the study area.

MATERIALS AND METHODS The Study Area
Kogi  Agriculture and Rural Development, 2016). The wet season begins in March and ends in October and the dry season spans between November and early March. The annual rainfall is between 1016mm and 1524mm, while the mean daily temperature ranges between 24°c and 27°c. It is located within Longitude 5° 22 1 and 7° 49 1 East and Latitude 6° 31 1 and 8° 44 1 North. Kogi State has a wide stretch of forest and arable land for farming, good grazing Land for livestock and large bodies of water for fishing and irrigation farming.
Niger State is locatedin the Guinea Savannah ecological zone of Nigeria. In terms of land mass, it is the largest State in Nigeria. It covers a total land area of 74,224km 2 accounting for about eight percent of Nigeria's land area. About 85% of its land area is good for arable crops production (Niger State Geographical Information System, 2015). It is located within Latitudes 8-10 o N and Longitudes 3 -8 o E with a population of about 3,950,249 (NPC [National Population Commission], 2006) and with a growth rate of 3.2%, the State has an estimated population of 5,586,000 in 2017 (Niger State Geographical Information System, 2015).

Sampling Procedure and Sample Size
Multi-stage sampling technique was used for the study in both States. The first stage involvedselection of all the Agricultural zones in both States. At the second stage, one (1) Local Government Area from each agricultural zone was randomly selected. The third stage involved random selection of four communities from the LGAs of the study. At the fourth stage, 10% of the farmers were randomly selected from the sampling frame of each community. In all, a total of 326 respondents were selected from both States as the sample size for the study.

Data collection and Analysis
Primary data was used for the study, the data were collected by researchers and trained enumerators using structured questionnaire complimented with interview schedule. Data obtained were analyzed using descriptive statistics such as frequency distribution, percentage and mean. Table 1 show that 92.2% and 82.7% of the rural farmers in Niger and Kogi States respectively derived improvement in procurement of food items, following the utilization of forest resources. The pooled result of Table 1 also indicates 87.1% of the rural farmers had increment in the procurement of the food items.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Livelihood Derived from Forest Resources Utilization
Similarly, 86.3% and 69.4% of the rural farmers in both Niger and Kogi States had improvement in the expenditure on cultural ceremonies, which was made possible through the utilization of forest resources. The pooled result validates improvement in expenditure on cultural ceremonies with 77.3% response rate.
Furthermore, Table 1 revealed that there was improved expenditure on non-food items in Niger and Kogi States as well as in the study area 82.4% and 57.2%, respectively. These results show that the rural farmers in the study area benefited from the utilization of forest resources in social and economic aspects which will go a long way in increasing their income and improving their livelihood status. In a related study, Rhett (2015) stressed that the wellbeing of rural farmers will improve if there is full access to utilization of forest resources.

Journal of Agripreneurship and Sustainable Development (JASD)
www.jasd.daee.atbu.edu.ng; Volume 3, Number 3, 2020 ISSN (Print): 2651-6144; ISSN (Online): 2651-6365  Table 2 shows that truck was the most working asset acquired by rural farmers in Niger State during the last one year with mean value of N62, 091, while in Kogi truck has a mean value of N35, 672. These results reveal that the mean value of truck acquired in Niger State is greater than that of Kogi State. This might be due to the fact that more trucks were bought in Niger State than Kogi State. The pooled results shows truck has a mean value of N47,852. Also, chainsaw has a mean value of N29,41.2 in Niger and N11,403 in Kogi State while the pooled results showed chainsaw to have mean value N73,61.9. More so, the mean value of fuel in Kogi State was N3,672 while that of Niger and pooled were N2,823 and N3,251, respectively. These findings revealed that reasonable numbers of working assets used by rural farmers were acquired during the last one year through forest resources utilization. Household Assets Acquired in the Last One Year  Table 3 indicates car with a mean value of N79,766 as the most assets acquired by rural farmers in Kogi State in the last season while the mean value of car in Niger State was N31,79.7. This finding reveals that more cars were bought in Kogi State in the last season than Niger. The pooled result reveals a mean value of N56,763. Also, generator has a mean value of N17,602 in Kogi while that of Niger was N1,440.80 and pooled N9,935. This finding revealed that a generator was the second households' assets acquired by respondents in the study area. Moreover, the mean value of motorcycle acquired by respondents in Niger State was N23,790 while that of Kogi and pooled were N101,116 and N164,072, respectively. These results reveals that lot of household assets were acquired in the last one year with income from forest resources.