Assessing the contributions of non-timber forest products on the livelihood of the rural farmers in the selected local government areas of Kebbi state

Abstract

This research work assessed the contributions of non-timber forest products on the livelihood of the rural farmers in the selected local government areas of Kebbi State with specific objectives of describing the socio-economic characteristics of the respondents, identify the most valuable non-timber forest products in the study area, examine the forms in which non-timber forest products are being used by the rural farmers, investigate how non-timber forest products improve the livelihood of the rural farmers, determine the level of exploitation of non-timber forest products by the rural farmers and find out the factors hindering full utilization of non-timber forest products by rural farmers in the study area. A multistage-sampling sampling technique was used for the study. The first stage involved the selection of two local government areas in the state. The second stage involved the selection of six districts from the selected local government areas. The third stage involved the selection of two villages from each district at random. Respondents were selected using simple random sampling from a sampling frame obtained from the village heads. A sampling frame of two thousand (2000) respondents was used and ten percent (10.0%) of the respondents constitute the sample size of the study. The basic instrument used for data collection of this research work was structured questionnaire containing both open and closed ended questions. While secondary data was obtained from text books, journals and so on. The data collected from administered questionnaire was analyzed using SPSS (version twenty). Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used for the study. Descriptive statistics was used to achieve objective 1,2,3,4 and 5, while logistic regression analysis was used to achieve objective 6. The result revealed that a good number of respondents (48.0%) were within the age range of 40-49years. Majority (72.0%) of the respondents were males. The results equally revealed that all the respondents had one form of education or the other, implying that respondents could accept innovation easily. The result also shows that majority (68.0%) of the respondents were married. The same results also revealed that majority (64.0%) of the respondents had family size between 6-10 members. The result equally reveled that majority (64.0%) of the respondents had farming and forest as their major source of food. The same result also indicates that majority (64.0%) of respondents were averagely food secured with good number of them (52.0%) sourcing their agricultural information from friends and relatives. The result also revealed that a good number (40.0%) of the respondents had fuel and fence wood as the most valuable non-timber forest products in the area. The result shows that a good number of respondents (56.0%) having non-timber forest products available throughout the year. The result revealed that majority (60.0%) of the respondents had harvesting as the method they used in the exploitation of non-timber forest products. Majority (64.0%) of the respondents utilizes non-timber forest products in both raw and processed farm. The findings indicate the majority (67.0%) of the respondents had an improvement in their quality of life as an impact derived from using non-timber forest products. Also a good number (48.0%) of the respondents had food and income as a major way in which non-timber forest products improve their livelihood with majority (64.0%) of them exploiting NTFPs at both subsistence and commercial levels. The result indicates 56.0% of the respondents exploiting NTFPs at both farming and non-farming seasons. Result of logistic regression analysis from SPSS (Version twenty) indicated Pseudo - R² - Value of 0.742 implying 74.0% change in rural farmer’s livelihood (y) was explained by cultural(X₁), social(X₂) and technological factors(X₃) included in the equation. Both cultural and social factors were negative, but technological factors were positive. Results of the odd ratios indicated no chances of probability of occurrence under cultural factors, but increased chances of probability of occurrence under social and technological factors. From the findings of the study, it could be concluded that non-timber forest products contribute immensely on the livelihood of the rural farmers in the study area by improving their quality of lives through the provision of food, incomes, shelter and medicine. Social and technological factors were the major factors hindering full-utilization of non-timber forest products by the rural farmers in the study area. The research work recommended that rural farmers in the study area should be educated technologically on the efficient use of NTFPs in the area by the government and NGOs, Rural farmers in the study area should be made to reduce over exploitation of non-timber forest products, so as to ensure the continuity of some extinction products, Alternative source of fuel should be provided in the rural areas in order to reduce over exploitation of forest plants as fuel wood by the rural farmers, Technical and financial support programs should be provided in the rural areas by the government and NGOs so as to promote farm income generating activities like value addition for farm produce in order to reduce over reliance on NTFPs by the rural farmer’s livelihood.