Economics of Poultry Waste Management in Nsukka Local Government Area, Enugu State
Chapter One
Objectives of the Study
Overall objective
The overall objective of this study was to evaluate the economics of manure disposal and utilization among farmers in Nsukka Local government area, in Nigeria.
Specific objectives
- To characterize manure production, disposal and use practices in the study area;
- To analyse the costs and benefits associated with poultry waste management practices in the study area;
- To determine the socio-economic factors that influence willingness of poultry farmers to use and pay for manure in the study
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
Manure Production, Disposal and Use Practices
According to Raynk (2004) and Kadigi (2013), different types of animals create different amounts of manure. The amount of manure produced each day varies, according to Kadigi (2013), from 0.22 kg/day/bird for poultry to 15-20 kg/day/animal for dairy cattle. For poultry, Raynk (2004) reports a smaller amount of 0.14 kg/day/bird, while dairy cattle receive a higher amount of 44.5 kg/day/animal. Feed management, manure handling, and application method all have an impact on the amount of manure produced within a particular source.
Nigeria’s continental territory produces roughly a million tons of poultry manure annually (Baitilwakea et al., 2011). Despite this vast potential, the majority of the country only uses a little amount of chicken manure for crop cultivation. Later on, According to Mtengeti and Jackson (2005), Nigerian farmers do not receive enough manure to fertilize their crop fields, thus the bulk of them leave the manure in the kraal and supplement it with maize stover. However, due to a lack of disposal space caused by a growth in manure output in densely populated urban and periurban regions, decomposing manure produces an unpleasant smell and favors the hatching of flies and diseases (Mlozi, 1996; Kadigi, 2013).
Because it is difficult to return animal waste and sewage at rates that the agricultural land can absorb when many animals are kept in small spaces, especially in cities, manure disposal in urban areas becomes a challenge, and poultry farmers incur significant costs in doing so (Chivenge and Six, 2011).
The need for management systems that can use the biomass and nutrients in the manure without causing unacceptable air, soil, or water pollution was made even more urgent by Babayem and Dauda’s (2009) observation that some traditional suburban settlements receive little to no attention when it comes to the provision of waste collection and disposal services. Thus, an appropriate strategy may be developed to connect urban livestock with peri-urban systems, making urban manure available to farmers. Additionally, it is crucial to search for affordable, effective manure disposal systems.
According to Lupindu et al. (2012), manure management strategies in urban and peri-urban settings have changed to accommodate denser populations where there is less space between people and animal waste. In addition, piling is a typical way of storing manure, even though some poultry farmers put dung directly on the ground as fertilizer to grow food. The households’ residential zones are where manure is disposed of.
There is a significant chance that some of the nutrients will be washed away by the rain if the manure is piled for an extended period of time and exposed to rain. Many of the farmers did pile the manure for subsequent disposal for a while. The tendency to stockpile appears to be for a longer period than one month or heaping it in less than seven days in the majority of situations. Some of the farmers indicated that dumping the manure and urine into a running stream of water was a good approach to handle the waste as little as possible (William and Robert, 2015).
Manure contains nutrients that, when managed properly, can replace commercial fertilizers, saving money that would have been spent on fertilizers. Luoga (2002) highlighted that mixed farming is frequently performed in several cities.
In this method, manure is used as a fertilizer for the growth of crops and the production of fodder, while crop byproducts and wastes are included in the animal feeds. Composting, refeeding, and anaerobic fermentation all function as alternatives to applying manure to the field for fertilization. In most cases, farmers in developing nations use the nutrients and organic matter from manure to minimize fertilizer and energy expenses while utilizing treatment techniques that do not adversely affect the quality of the air, surface water bodies, or groundwater.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research Design
The research design for this study was cross sectional. It was carried out between March and May 2015. Multistage sampling technique was employed to address the objectives of the research. The steps involved the selection of the four wards purposely followed by the randomly selection of the poultry farmers and poultry farmers from each ward as describe in sections 3.2.1 and 3.2.2 of this chapter.
Sampling
The population involved all poultry farmers and poultry farmers from 29 wards of Nsukka Local government area. A purposive sampling technique based on agro-ecology, concentration of poultry farming and easy accessibility was used to select four communities in Nsukka. The coummunities wards are known for poultry farming and horticultural production in Nsukka urban and their representation of different agro-ecology are among the reasons for selection of that Community for this study.
Selection of sample poultry farmers and poultry farmers
Information from Community leaders, agricultural extension and livestock officers was used to generate lists from which the sample households were selected from the four sample wards mentioned above. The appropriate sample size for the study was initially computed using the following sample size determination formula.
CHAPTER FOUR
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Socio-economic Characteristics of Respondents
Personal characteristics of respondents
Table 2 summarizes descriptive statistics of respondents’ personal characteristics (sex, age, education and main source of income) for poultry farmers and horticulture farmers. According to the table, male-headed households were more common (73% ) for poultry farmers and 74% for poultry farmers) than those headed by females (27%) and (26%) for poultry farmers and poultry farmers, respectively).Chi-square test showed that, there was not statistical difference between the two groups in terms of gender. Hence, this shows that irrespective of the group, relatively a lower proportion of female headed household are engaged in farming activities than male headed households, implying that farming in Nsukka Local government area is a male dominated venture. This is probably because females spend most of their time on family home based activities and obligations such as food preparation, collecting firewood, fetching water from distances, attending local social affairs, assisting the family at farm routines (Kirigia et al., 2013). Most (51%) poultry farmers’ age ranged between 36 and 55 years old while poultry farmers in the same range accounted for 45% as shown by Table2. The mean household size was 5.6 and 6.1 persons for livestock producers and poultry farmers respectively, with the majority of the household having a size ranging from 1 to 8 persons for both cases.
CHAPTER FIVE
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Introduction
This study’s main goal was to assess how farmers in the Nsukka Local Government Area used and disposed of manure. The specific goals were to I describe manure production, disposal, and use practices; (ii) examine the costs and benefits of alternative methods for managing poultry waste; and (iii) identify socioeconomic variables that affect poultry farmers’ willingness to use and pay for manure in the study area. 193 randomly chosen households, including 118 poultry farmers and 75 farmers, provided the study’s data. To accomplish the study’s goals, descriptive analyses, an examination of the costs and advantages of managing animal and poultry waste, and a binary logistic regression model were used. This Chapter gives the study’s conclusion and suggestions in regard to its main results and study objectives.
Conclusions
Manure production, disposal and use practices: The study’s primary finding regarding manure production, disposal, and use practices is that the majority of livestock manure produced in the Nsukka Local Government Area is utilized economically for the production of vegetables, a small amount for the production of biogas, and a very small portion is disposed (thrown away or dumped). Therefore, promoting the use of chicken manure for the production of vegetables and biogas would minimize the amount of poultry manure deposited, and as a result, will lessen the environmental pollution caused by poultry manure dumped nearby residential areas in the local government region.
Costs and benefits associated with alternative animal poultry waste managements: In general, the analyses of direct costs and benefits associated with alternative uses of poultry manure have shown that direct benefits are significantly higher than the direct costs associated with alternative uses of manure. However, the net benefits per annum varied from one alternative use to another with manure trade being the most beneficial use of poultry manure in the study area. Apart from the direct benefits, there are indirect benefits associated with economic use of manure in terms of reducing the risks associated with dumping the manure. Thus there is evidence to reject the null hypothesis that costs associated with alternative uses of poultry manure do not exceed the benefits associated with alternative poultry waste managements. This suggests that promoting use of poultry manure for production of crops and biogas production will reduce the negative effect of urban and peri-urban poultry farming instead of instituting by-laws to restrict poultry farming in urban and peri-urban areas of Nigeria.
Socio-economic factors influencing willingness to use and pay for poultry manure: The findings of the study show that 84% of the interviewed poultry farmers were using poultry manure on their horticultural plots and 86% of those who were not using poultry manure indicated willingness to use it in the future. The major reasons for not willing to use poultry manure were high manure price, high labor labour requirements and labour cost in handling and manure application, unavailability of manure, misconception that manure burns crops, distance of the crop fields from homesteads, and lack of transport facilitate.
The results of Logit analysis show that a poultry farmer’s willingness to pay for poultry manure was strongly influenced by their education, household income and distance from source of manure to the horticultural plots and/or market. Only three of the nine socio-economic factors hypothesized to influence willingness to pay for poultry manure were significant. Therefore, there is no adequate evidence to reject the null hypothesis socio-economic factors do not influence farmers’ willingness to pay for manure.
Recommendations
Based on the major findings of this study, the following recommendations are made in order to promote manure production, proper handling and marketing in the study area;
- In order to increase the extent of animal poultry waste management, effort should be directed towards designing manure handling practices that safeguarding human, animals and the environment.
- Instead of prohibiting poultry farming in urban areas, local governments in cities, municipal and town councils should promote use poultry manure on horticultural plots and for biogas production as one of the ways of reducing environmental pollution resulting from thrown away and pilled close to residential areas. Promoting use of manure for biogas production will not only reduce environment pollution resulting from manure thrown away but also reduce use of fuel wood and charcoal which lead to deforestation.
- To improve willingness for farmers’s willingness to use manure for hortcultural crops farmers should be educated on proper use of manure on crops to remove their misconception that manure burns crops access enough information on poultry waste management for consideration by extension officers.The findings of the study indicate that manure is a tradable commodity in urban This trade can be promoted by packaging the manure in such a way that it can be easily handed and transported.
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