Productivity and Technical Efficiency of Family Poultry Production in Kurmi local Government Area of Taraba State, Nigeria

This study assessed the socio "“ economic characteristics and technical efficiency of family poultry production in Kurmi Local Government Area of Taraba state, Nigeria. The result of the study reveals that the respondents are relatively young with mean age of 44 years. Findings from the study showed that female constitutes 60% of the family poultry producers in the study area. The result also reveals that the main reason for rearing family poultry is for sales.The technical efficiency estimate showed that the technical efficiency of family poultry ranges between 0.29 and 0.84, with a mean of 0.63. This indicates that on the average, the respondents are 63% efficient in the use of combination of their inputs. Return on investment (ROI) is 0.76 meaning that family poultry is highly profitable. This high profitability should attract financing by lending institutions. The elasticity estimate of 3.18 indicates that the family poultry production is taking place at stage 1 (inefficient stage) in production curve. This study concludes that the output and technical efficiency of the family poultry production can be increased by the use of more feed, capital, medicine/vaccine and adoption of more innovations

Poverty and its alleviating strategies among rural farming households in Benue state, Nigeria

The study analysed rural farming households’ poverty status and alleviating strategies in Benue State, Nigeria. The specific objectives of the study were to: describes the rural household heads’ socio-economic characteristics; determine the poverty status of the respondents and its determinants; and identify poverty alleviating strategies of the respondents. Data for the study was collected from 420 respondents selected using a multi-stage sampling technique. Data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics, the Foster-Greer-Thorbecke poverty measurement index, and the Binary Logistic regression model. The findings of the study revealed a very high incidence of poverty (70%), having a gap of 0.34, and severity of 0.17. Poverty in the area is positively associated with the age of the household head and household size, while gender, educational level, off-farm activity, membership of a group, farm size, and land ownership are negatively associated with poverty. The common poverty alleviation strategies identified were agricultural wage labour (48.6%), rental services (45.0%), and transportation business (36.7%). Therefore, it was recommended that the government and other stakeholders should initiate sustainable social protection schemes that can assist rural residents in alleviating poverty until their condition improves