Irhivben, Bright Odafe1*
Inoni, Oghenenyerhovwo Rita2
Aberji, Okompu Davina3
Inoni, Odjuvwuederhie Emmanuel4
1,3,4Department of Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness,
Dennis Osadebay University, Asaba, Delta State, Nigeria
2Department of Marketing,
Dennis Osadebay University, Asaba, Delta State, Nigeria
*For correspondence, email: irhivben.bright@dou.edu.ng
Abstract
Efforts to boost off-farm income among farming households in rural areas have been hampered by socio-economic and institutional variables. This study thus seeks to critically examine factors determining women’s participation in off-farm agribusiness enterprises in Oshimili North Local Government Area of Delta State, Nigeria. Off- farm activities include palm oil production and sale of products like yam, garri, red oil, and plantain. Data for the study were obtained from a cross section of rural dwellers with the aid of structured questionnaire, using multi-stage sampling procedure. The research instrument was administered to 280 female agribusiness entrepreneurs, but statistical analysis was based on 225, given a response rate of 80.4%. Descriptive and inferential statistics as well as and net margin were used to analyse data collected. The results indicate that about 67% of them are married, living in households with an average of 6 persons, and with a mean age of 46 years. This implies that 83.1% of off-farm agribusiness operators are within the economically active age of 23-55 years. Based on the estimated model, gender, annual income, start-up capital, household size and farm size exerted significant (p< 0.05) effects on participation in off-farm agripreneurship operation. Net margin is N= 196,395.78, while net margin-to-total-cost ratio is 40.3%; indicating that participation in off-farm agribusiness operations is highly profitable.
Keywords: Agribusiness enterprises, Agricultural products, Binary Probit analysis, Net margin, Women participation