Problems and Prospects of Poultry Rearing in Lagelu Local Government Area of Oyo State, Nigeria

World poultry production is increasing yearly yet the demand for the products has not been met. This study assessed the problems and prospects of poultry rearing in Lagelu Local Government Area of Oyo State, Nigeria. The study was carried out among poultry farmers with interview schedule of Eighty (80) farmers using structured questionnaires. The study examined social characteristics of poultry farmers, benefits of poultry production, needs and constraints of poultry production in the study area. Descriptive statistical analysis was used to analyze data. The study revealed that 73.80% of the respondents were males and 26.20% were females, 52.60% had tertiary education, 36.20% had secondary school education and 11.20% had primary school education. The result showed that 67.50% of the respondents had increase in egg production, 15.00% had average increase in egg production and 17.50% had no increase in egg production. The respondents had maximum income benefit with 15.00% always having high income, 51.20% low income and 33.80% indicated indifference in their income. In this research work, the poultry farmers shows various needs to boost their production, where 91.20% have problems of good storage facilities, 92.50% with problems of pest and disease control, 88.80% request for training for farmers and 53.8% aimed at credit facilities. The major problems that poultry farmers encounter in the study area are inadequate capital (100.00%), pest and disease (100.00%), lack of credit facilities (100.0%) and high cost of feeding (80.0%) of the respondents. DOI:https://dx.doi.org/10.4314/jasem.v24i9.14 Copyright: Copyright © 2020 Fadimu et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CCL), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Dates: Received: 10 August 2020; Revised: 16 September 2020; Accepted: 22 September 2020

Poultry are domesticated birds kept by humans for their eggs, meat and feathers. Reasonable numbers of these birds are typically members of the suborder Galloanserae (fowl), especially the order Galliformes (which includes chickens, quails, and turkeys). The poultry sector offers the quickest returns to investment outlays in livestock enterprise by virtue of its short gestation period, high feed conversion ratio alongside being one of the cheapest, commonest and best sources of animal protein in the country (Ojo, 2002). Nigeria's poultry industry has its root in the initiative of regional governments from the 1960's when the Western Regional Government entered into joint pilot poultry production schemes with some foreign partners, notably the Israeli government (Adene and Oguntade, 2006). The entry of private investors into poultry production in the late 1960s to early 1970s marked the onset of indigenous commercial poultry industry. It then spread from the west to the eastern region and parts of the Northern region with the west especially witnessing tremendous growth (Adene and Oguntade, 2006).According to the Food and Agricultural organization of the United Nations (FAO), more pork is eaten in the world than any other terrestrial meat (FAO, 2013). About 37% of all meat consumed in the world is pork (110 million metric tonnes, mmt) -ahead of beef (67 mmt) and chicken (104 mmt).The size of the industry grew from less than 1million in the mid-1960s to over 40 million by the early parts of the 1980s. All along, the growth of the industry had been propped on by government initiatives and incentives especially in terms of training, technological support, input support services and others. Adene and Oguntade, (2006) assert that many of the poultry technical staff were products of government subsidizing training programs, although inputs like vaccines and diagnostic services were either subsidized by government or even given out freely at the initial stage. The meat and egg from poultry are good source of animal protein which is essential in the maintenance of the body growth and the repair of worn out tissues, thus making poultry and its products an important dietary food. Chicken meat and eggs provide not only high quality protein, but also important vitamins and minerals. To have a successful poultry production, ration with which the birds are fed must be well formulated with all nutrient classes in exact quantity and quality for specific age for the birds to meet their nutritional requirements. Vitamins and minerals are two distinct groups of compounds that perform a variety of functions in the animal body, but for poultry they are usually considered together and are simply put as premixes.
However, despite the growing population of commercial poultry, the subsistence and the small scale units are still prevalent all over sub-urban areas, rural places and especially in the villages. Although the commercially oriented poultry pens are abundant all over the state with varying modern scientific approaches to production of poultry, yet output continue to be inadequate and prices increasing above the reach of a common man. Poultry production as an aspect of livestock production is important to the biological needs, economic growth and social development of the people in any nation (Oladeebo and Ambe-Lamidi, 2007). However, the contribution of poultry production (meat and eggs) to total livestock output increased from 26.0% in 1995 to 27.0% in 1999 with an increase in egg production alone accounting for about 13.0% during the period (Ojo, 2003).
Despite the acknowledged importance of poultry production, the industry is still characterized by low production level due to limited finance for the procurement of basic poultry equipment and materials (Akanni, 2007).The result of this is that many of the small-scale poultry farmers are not encouraged to increase their productivity; thereby progressing from small-scale production to large scale production by farmers is hindered which could be detrimental to the rate of increase of the industry. It has an area of 338 km² and a population of 147,957 at the 2006 census (NPC, 2006). The main occupation of the people in this local government area is farming including large production of palm oil and black soap; thus the thriving of traditional palm oil and soap making industries.

MATERIALS AND METHOD
Sampling Procedure and Sample Size: Random sampling technique was used to carry out this research work. A total number of 120 structured questionnaires were distributed and 80 were retrieved.
Data Collection: Well-structured questionnaires and personal interview of poultry farmers was used for primary data collection. The content of the questionnaire was open and close ended questions.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The socio economic characteristics of poultry farmers in the study area is as presented in Table1.The result showed that 73.80% of the respondents were males while 26.20% were females. This shows that poultry production in the study area was dominated by men; this may be as a result of an extra effort in making additional income to cater for the family (Salum et al., 1999). However, poultry rearing serves as a good subsidiary occupation that supplements the income of smallholder farm families and rural households in most developing countries (Anang et al., 2013).The result indicates that the age distribution of the respondents within the range of 20-39 years has 81.30% of the total, which showed that most of the farmers were agile to carry out the production activities as age is a factor to be considered with labour required for the production process. 52.60% of the respondents had tertiary education and this could improve the ability of the farmers to carry out careful observation and access information through technology, complying with Amos (2006) who stated that education is important for the abduction of new innovations. Level of education has significant impacts on poultry production through the various management activities carried out on the farm. Education has been described as being pivotal to unlocking the entrepreneurial abilities of farmers and enhancing their ability to understand and evaluate new production techniques (Obasi, 1991;Iheke, 2010;Nwaru et al., 2011).Lastly, the result showed that the farmers had good experience that is well above 11 years representing 66.30% of the total respondent. The number of years of experience in poultry production helps the farmers to increase their potentials to cope with risk involved with the production. According to Nwaru et al. (2011), the number of years a farmer has spent in the farming business may give an indication of the practical knowledge he has acquired on how he can overcome certain inherent farm production problems.  Table (2) showed that there was a marked increase of 67.50% in egg production and a decrease of 15.00%. Availability of drugs was considered to be 45.00% high, 25.00% low and an indifference percentage change of 30.00. Diseases remain one of the major threats to boosting poultry production in Nigeria (Adewole, 2012).The income generated by the farmers was considered and the values recorded were 15.00% increase, 51.00% decrease and 33.80% indifference. The result showcased poultry as a low income generation business and a likely discouragement to new investors. This is consistent with the study of Adekanye (2000) who stated that every investor is looking to maximize profit in any set up of its entrepreneur. In general, every business enterprise aims at greater productivity to ensure continuous survival and growth of the industry. Furthermore, the result showed that 30.00% of the respondents had an increase in their standard of living through the business, 46.20% with a decrease and 23.80% having indifference. It was also indicated that 36.20% of respondents agreed that there was increase in meat product and 41.20% with a decrease while 22.50% recorded indifference. This implied that there was increase in meat production in the study area. Household nutrition and food security is strongly supported by availability of poultry in the household (Sonaiya, 2007).  Table 3 shows the needs assessment of the respondent in the study area where majority of them (53.80% and 22.50%) agreed that loans and credit facility should be made available to them in the study area. A productive resource such as agricultural credit is very vital for efficient and sustainable production activities especially in developing countries (Nweke, 2001). In a bid to avoid losses and increase productivity, 65.00% of the respondents strongly agreed that readily available markets should be provided for their products. Dolberg (2013) lamented that: "Limited Access to the Core Markets" is the major problem of the industry. 82.50% of strongly agreed and 17.50% of the respondents agreed that adequate electricity will allow them preserve their products through good storage facilities. The need for storage in the country is a necessary tool which helps farmers to preserve their farm produce and products from wastage thereby reducing loss. Majority (71.20%) of the respondent strongly agreed that new technologies on rearing of poultry birds will help them to increase in productivity while 16.20%only agreed with the statement. It was shown that majority of the respondent strongly agreed that prevention of disease is one of the major needs in the study area, while 91.20% strongly agreed that storage facilities is their needs in the study area. FAO (2001) indicated that disease and pests need to be minimized in livestock production in Nigeria. The table 4 indicates the problems faced by poultry farmers in the study area where 80.00% of respondent agreed that the cost of feeds and feeding is their major problem and 20.00% agreed that feeding is a minor problem. All of the respondents (100.00%) declared that capital is a great challenge been faced by the farmers in the study area and they all agreed that capital determines the size of your farm and how a farm is equipped. Amount of capital will determine the size of a farm, access to capital determines the growth rate of farms and how equipped a farm will be. Odoh et al., (2009) reported that "farm credit is among the essential factors needed for agricultural production, and with it, farmers can secure farm inputs such as; farm equipment and hired labour. The result indicate that 33.80% of the respondents agreed that labour is a major problem while 53.80% agree that labour is a minor problems, also that problem of pests and diseases are major problems in the study area which agrees with Adewole (2012) stating that diseases remains one of the major threats to boosting poultry production in Nigeria. According to Akpabio et al. (2007) that the major factor that determines the breakdown of any livestock farming is disease and it must be considered by individual farmer and government should help the farmers in combating the challenges. It was revealed that 65.00% of the respondents agreed that marketing is a problem in the study area and the entire respondents(100.00% ) agreed that high cost of medication and lack of credit facilities is a great challenge., (Ahmed , 2013) stated that marketing is problem that determine the profit level of any business setup.  Conclusion: The age range of poultry farmers in the study area was in the bracket of productive age for human, it is an advantage to the production output in the study area. From the analysis of information gathered in this study, it is obvious that poultry production has a great potential in bridging animal protein gap, create employment for the for people in the study area, generate sufficient income for the poultry farmer and increase food security in our society. In providing solutions to the problems of poultry farmers in Lagelu local government area, it will be recommended that government in all arms and private bodies should intervene in provision of good credit facilities to the poultry farmers, subsidize the cost of feeds and feed ingredients, create access to ready markets, provide good electricity, provide veterinary centers and veterinary personnel for the poultry industry in the study area.