Determinants Of The Level Of Risk Management Among Poultry Egg Farmers In South-West Nigeria

This study was conducted among 343 poultry farmers to assess the level of risk management in South-western, Nigeria using Ogun State, Osun State, and Oyo State as focal study areas. Multi-stage sampling procedure was employed while descriptive statistics, fuzzy logic, and ordered probit were used to analyse the study data. Majority (98.0%) of the poultry farmers had access to credit while only 2.0% of the farmers insured their poultry farms. Biosecurity, medications, and mitigation were identified as the elements of poultry risk management with 72.60%, 20.5%, and 6.9% respectively in their relative contributions. Majority (73.5%) of the poultry farmers operated at a low level of risk management in the study area. Ogun State had the highest (95.5%) of the poultry egg farmers that were on the low level of risk management while Osun State had the least (66.9%) among the three states. The study also revealed that the factors determining the level of risk management include years of education (p ≤ 0.05 household size (p ≤ 0.01), years of experience in poultry farming (p ≤ 0.01), and mortality rate (p ≤ 0.01). The study recommended that policy focus of government in Nigeria should be geared towards improvement in the service delivery in which extension agents should improve on information dissemination and enlightening on biosecurity practices to the poultry farmers as a crucial aspect of risk management in poultry farming. Poultry farmers should also be encouraged to utilise livestock insurance policy to safeguard them from future risks.