ABSTRACT
This study assessed the the information needs on recycling of organic waste by urban backyard poultry farmers in Ovia-North East local government areas of Edo state, Nigeria. The specific objectives were to; describe the socioeconomic characteristics of urban farmers in the study area, identify urban poultry farmers’ awareness on organic waste recycling in the study area, access the level of utilization of the various poultry waste recycling methods of the respondents in the study area, access the information need of urban poultry farmers in the management of poultry waste recycling in the study area, examine the various information channels accessible to the respondents for sourcing needed information on poultry organic waste in the study area and to examine the constraints faced by urban poultry farmers in organic waste recycling in the study area.
A total of 118 urban poultry farmers in the study area were administered questionnaire and interviewed for the purpose of this study and the survey revealed that majority (51.69%) of the farmers were female, a good percentage (85.59%) were married with average household size of almost 6 persons, an average mean age of 36year and 43.22% of the respondent had Primary school education. The average monthly non- farm income of the poultry farmers in the study area was N210,360.17 and the average monthly farm income was N287,263.
The study showed that 69 poultry farmers (58.47%) in the study area were members of cooperative and only 13 poultry farmers (11.2%) in the study area had contact with agricultural development programs. The major constraint faced by the urban poultry farmers in the study area were lack of technical know how and high transportation cost. There are significant relationships between some selected socio-economic characteristics of the backyard urban poultry farmers in the study area which includes; educational level (r= 0.619), household size (r= 0.563) and their awareness of waste management; farm size (r= 0.739), level of experience (r= 0.516), membership of cooperative (r= 0.429), Annual Farm Income (r= 0.624) and their utilization of waste recycling methods; membership of social group (r= 0.418), source of capital (r= 0.529) and their information needs on the management of waste at a probability level of P<0.01 and P<0.05 respectively.
