Gender Involvement of Sedentary Fulani in Dairy Farming Practices in Osun State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study assessed the gender involvement of sedentary Fulani in dairy farming practices in Osun State, Nigeria. A multi-stage sampling procedure was used to select 256 respondents from 12 Local Government Areas (LGAs) inhabited by the sedentary Fulani in the study area. Interview schedules were used for quantitative data collection. Data were analyzed and interpreted using descriptive statistics such as frequency counts, percentages, means and standard deviations while one-way ANOVA was used to draw inferences on the hypothesis. The results showed that the mean age of the male and female respondents was 34.05 ± 12.49 years and 33.33 ± 13.14 years respectively. The majority of the male (85.9 %) and female (89.8 %) respondents had no formal education. The mean herd size of male and female respondents was 20 ± 2 and 5 ± 2 heads of cattle respectively. All of the male respondents indicated that fencing, grazing and milking were male gender roles, while all female respondents indicated that cleaning of pens, sales of milk/milk products and processing of milk were female gender roles. The study showed that 42.7% of the male and10.2% of the female respondents had high level of involvement in dairy farming activities, while 24.7% of the male and 44.2% of the female respondents had low level of involvement. Further results revealed that there were significant differences (F = 312.80) between the male and female respondents in their involvement in dairy farming practice. The study concluded that there is gender gap in male and female involvement in dairy farming practices.