ASSESSMENT OF WOMEN INVOLVEMENT IN WATERMELON PRODUCTION ACTIVITIES IN OYO STATE, NIGERIA
2nd Biennial Conference
Authors
Abstract
The study assessed women involvement in watermelon production activities in Oyo State, Nigeria. Interview
schedule was used to collect primary data from the respondents. Multi-stage sampling technique was used to
draw 140 respondents across the study areas. Findings revealed that Mean age of respondents was 38 years and
average household size was 7 persons. Majority (90.7%) of the respondents were married Average household
size was 7 persons. Majority of the respondents (86.4%) had between primary and tertiary education while
minority (13.6%) had no formal education. Average year of farming experience was 15 years. Average farm size
was 1.1 hectares. Respondents were fully involved in the activities such as harvesting (95.7%), marketing
(97.9%), watering (96.4%), fertilizer application (88.6%), seeds treatment (67.9%), pre-nursery activities
(61.4%), hole digging (64.3%) while they were partially involved in weeding (62.1%) and planting (94.3%). Most
of them (67.1%) were not involved in land preparation. Inadequate capital (x̄ = 2.93), Climatic factor (x̄ = 2.92),
Lack of storage facilities (x̄ = 2.88) were among the major constraints to watermelon production. PPMC revealed
significant relationship between age (r= 0.072, p< 0.05), farm size (r= 0.512, p< 0.05), farming experience (r=
0.568, p< 0.05) and involvement of women in watermelon production activities. The study concluded that most
women involved themselves in less tedious activities in watermelon production rather than the tedious one which
were left for men to do. It was recommended that government should subsidize the cost of equipment to ease
watermelon production for women
Keywords
Women, Watermelon, Production activities and Involvement.
Download PDF