ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study was to ascertain the competency level of rabbit farmers in Ika South Local Government Area of Delta State, Nigeria. The specific objectives were to: describe the socio-economic characteristics of the rabbit farmers; determine the competency level of the rabbit farmers in some selected major tasks on the farm; identify the tasks in the farms were rabbit farmers need training; and identify factors affecting competency level of rabbit farmers. The probabilistic simple random sampling technique was adopted in the selection of a sample size of 87 respondents. Descriptive (mean, frequency counts, percentages, standard deviation and frequency distribution table) and inferential (binary logistic regression model and t-test) statistics were used for data analysis. The instrument for data analysis also included the non-parametric Likert scale. The results of the study showed that of the nine major tasks identified, the respondents were competent in only three which included feeding/watering of animals, waste disposal and marketing/sales of product. The major factors responsible for the incompetency of most of the respondents were poor education/lack of technical knowledge (97.7%), inadequate training (94.3%), size of the farm (64.4%) and low level of extension contact (40.2%). The results of the regression analysis indicated that educational attainment of respondents (X4), farming business experience (X5), and farm or flock size (X6) were the only significant socio-economic variables( P < 0.05) determining the competency of rabbit farmers inthe study area. Therefore, the overall current job performance of the respondents fell below the expected job performance. Arising from this, it was recommended, among others, that training should be provided for the rabbit farmers in the tasks where they lacked competence to improve their competency. |
