Enterprise Combination in Livestock Sector in Southwestern, Nigeria

摘要

This study examined the optimal combination of enterprises in livestock industry in South-West Nigeria. Stratified random sampling technique was employed in collecting data from 360 livestock farmers. Descriptive statistics, budgetary technique and linear programming model were employed for data analysis. Six livestock enterprises, non-integrated poultry, piggery and fishery and horizontally integrated poultry/fishery, poultry/piggery and poultry/piggery/fishery were identified. Livestock farmers in the area are aged with low level of education and large household size do not operate at optimal level based on the available resources. The budgetary analysis shows that the most profitable enterprise combination is integrated poultry and piggery while the enterprise that yielded the least net farm income is non-integrated poultry enterprise. The profitability of integrated and non-integrated livestock enterprises is limited by high cost of production in which the feed cost constitutes the lion's share. The optimal enterprise combinations are the integrated poultry and fishery and integrated poultry/piggery enterprise with poultry/piggery combination being the most efficient. The policy implication from this study requires that both farmers and government must team up to find a means of reducing feed cost by financing livestock research centers and state agricultural development programmes to develop genetically improved breeds of livestock which efficiently converts feed. Labour as a resource was the most limited in the area, there is therefore the need for research to focus critically on indigenously automated livestock equipment that can perform tasks like feeding, vaccination, etc. Farmers in South-West Nigeria and by extension, Nigeria as a whole should concentrate and intensify their livestock combination practices especially that of poultry/piggery, which is the optimal combination enterprise and that of poultry/fishery enterprise combination because of their high profitability levels.