EFFECTS OF SOCIO-ECONOMIC CHARACTERISTICS OF PASTORALISTS IN ENHANCING TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION FOR LIVESTOCK PRODUCTION IN KACHIA AND BOBI GRAZING RESERVES, NIGERIA

Abstract

The study on the effects of socio-economic characteristics of pastoralists on enhancing technological innovation for livestock production was conducted in Kachia and Bobi grazing reserves, Nigeria. Two grazing reserves Bobi in Niger State and Kachia in Kaduna State were purposively selected and 260 pastoralists were randomly selected for both qualitative and quantitative data collection. Data collected were analyzed using descriptive and inferential (logistic regression) statistics. Results showed that pastoralists in the age bracket of 31-40 years (46.54%) were the majority in the grazing reserves. In terms of years of experience in grazing those with over 15 years of grazing experiences were the majority (75.77%). Attributes such as characteristics of the technologies promoted, their relative advantage, triability and observability had influence on the technological innovation among the pastoralists. Results on logit regression showed that age of pastoralist in Kachia grazing reserve had played a significant role in enhancing technological innovation in milk production, feed conservation and feed supplementation, at 5% levels and had given a good platform for the growth of dairy cooperative federation. While experience in livestock production had greatly influence adoption in deworming of livestock practice, fodder bank, feed conservation, crop process, vaccination of poultry and routine annual vaccination of ruminants against CRPP, Rinderpest and PPR. Household size had also greatly and positively influenced the technological innovation of fattening, poultry vaccination, cooperative, feed conservation and milk production, activities, in the grazing reserves. The study therefore, recommends that age, experience in livestock production among others should be considered in enhancing technological innovation of livestock production technologies in the grazing reserves.