Gender Analysis of Rural Households’ Involvement in Oil Palm Production, Processing and Marketing in Southeast Nigeria

Abstract

The study focused on gender analysis of rural households’ involvement in oil palm production, processing and marketing in Southeast Nigeria. Multi-stage sampling procedure was used in the selection of the 540 respondents for the study. Data for the study were collected with the use of structured questionnaire and analyzed with descriptive and inferential statistics. The result showed that the tasks of harvesting (91.6%), farm clearing (81.0%), site selection (75.8%) and transportation (66.1) were majorly carried out by the male farmers, while the tasks of fertilizer/manure application (75.5%), planting (63.4%), nursery establishment (58.7%) and field preparation (57.4%) were majorly carried out by female farmers in the study area. The major tasks performed the male farmers were paying of rents (74.8%) and transportation of products (57.0%) while canvassing for customers (84.2%), selling of products (83.2%), packaging of products (75.2%), grading of products (67.0%), storing of product (60.2%), determining quantity to be sold (58.9%), were performed by female farmers in the study area. Result from Logit regression analysis revealed that coefficients of age (5%), household size (5%), level of education (1%), farm size (1%), and farm income (5%) were the factors influencing involvement in oil palm enterprise among male farmers in the study area. More so, age (5%), marital status (10%), household expenditure (1%), education (5%), farm income (1%), farm size (1%), occupation (1%), labour cost (1%) were the factors influencing involvement in oil palm enterprise among the female farmers in the study area. The study clearly delineates the role of male and female farmers in the production, processing and marketing of oil palm produce and lends itself to the possibility of introducing gender-specific technology for the various activities as paradigm shift. It is therefore recommended that research institutes develop a gender specific technology in oil-palm production, processing and marketing in Southeast Nigeria