Assessment of Socio-economic Characteristics of Ruminant Livestock Producers in Ushongo Local Government Area of Benue State, Nigeria

The study assessed the socio-economic and effects of livestock production on the livelihood of rural households in Ushongo Local Government area of Benue State, Nigeria. Does not tally with the title above. Multi-stage sampling procedure was used to sample respondents for the study, data was collected using structural questionnaire administered to the respondents. Data was collected from 120 respondents as the population for the study. It was evident from the study that the age category 31-40 years (37.50%) were more actively involved in ruminant production and majority (53.33%) were found to be males while majority (72.50%) were married. Most of the respondents (57.50%) were found to be farmers and majority (45.00%) attained secondary education with 60.83% of them with household size of 6-10 members. Majority (39.17%) have 11-20 ruminants, their membership of formal organization was found to be 75.83% while 99.17% of them produce goats, most of them (58.33%) had annual income of 0-100,000 naira and have low access to production technologies (51.67%). Majority (51.70%) farming experience of 6-10 years. The study concluded that some socio-economic characteristics have significant effects on ruminants’ production on the respondents in the study area (This was not measured). It was recommended that: government through extension agents educate ruminants farmers on modern production technologies; ruminant production farmers should be accessed formal credit in form of loans by government and commercial banks for effective production; ruminant production farmers should also pool their financial resource to enable them remain in production; and ruminant production farmers should engage in formal association to gain more knowledge based on the interaction with others.