An Assessment of Demographic Characteristics of Women Involvement on the Improved Methods of Groundnut Processing in Three (3) Local Government Areas of Niger State, Nigeria

Abstract

There is gender division of women in farm labour in Niger State. The gender division of women in farm labour assigns women more works in the processing of groundnut as Agricultural food products and yet, women have no access to improved methods of groundnut processing and depend mainly on the traditional methods the purpose of this study therefore were to determine the demographic characteristics of women involvement on the improved methods of groundnut processing in there (3) Local Government Areas of Niger State. Two specific objectives that guided the study are. 1. Examine the demographic characteristics of women involvement on the improved methods of groundnut processing in the study areas. Identify the constraints faced by women processors in the study area. A multi-stage sampling procedure were employed in the selection of the respondents. The first state was purposive selection of Agricultural zone one of the State AMDA because of the high concentration of the respondents in the zone. This was followed by random selection of there (3) Local Government Areas (LGAs) from the zone which is equivalent to three AMDA Extension blocks. The third stage was random selection of four (4) extension cells from each of the Extension blocks, from an existing list of registered women groundnut processors Association (314) with sate AMDA, a total population samples size of 180 respondents was randomly selected. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data pertinent to the study with the help of Enumerators. Data were descriptively analyzed. Demographically, majority of the respondents were between the age distribution of 21-50 years and married, majority of the respondents in the study area had their household size of between 6-10 people. About 50% of the respondents had no access to formal education and 57% had 1-6 years in schooling. The result also revealed that about 32% of the respondents had 15-20 years of groundnut processing experience and about 55% of the respondents had their major occupation has full time processor. The recommendation made include need for the government and interested non government organization (NGOs) to provide credit facilities for respondents to enable them involved into improved methods of groundnut processing technologies.