Ijigbade Jo’s scientific contributions

This study empirically examined the assessment of charcoal production as an entrepreneurial livelihood strategy in Ekiti, Nigeria. A multistage sampling procedure was employed to select the 66 respondents for this study. A structured questionnaire was used to obtain data, summarize, and present them using tables, frequency counts, percentages, and means, while budgeting analysis and linear multiple regression models were used to analyze the relationships between variables. The results revealed that there were slightly more male (56.1%) respondents in terms of charcoal production than female (43.9%). The results revealed that most (53%) of the charcoal producers were literate. The budgeting analysis of charcoal production showed that it is a profitable venture with an average net profit of ₦340,770 and a return on investment of 1.66. Using linear multiple regression, the study identified several key factors influencing charcoal production, including age (=-0.453, p < 0.10), level of education (= 1.334, p < 0.01), level of production (= 0.932, p < 0), and years of experience in charcoal production (= 0.418, p < 0.01). The livelihood strategies employed by charcoal producers focus on efficient processing and carbonization of wood and the training and retraining of producers. It is recommended that charcoal producers use alternative raw materials instead of fresh trees to produce charcoal.

Before this study, several studies investigated the resource use efficiency of cocoa farmers in the study area. However, there seems to be no consensus on the production stage of cocoa in Idanre LGA of Ondo State. Hence, this study focuses on the profitability and resource use efficiency of the farmers with a view to determining the current stage of their production. A Cobb-Douglas production function was postulated using an ordinary least squares technique to determine the production elasticity of inputs used by the respondents. To achieve the objective, a multi-stage sampling procedure was used to randomly select two hundred and forty (240) farmers. Data were collected through a well-structured questionnaire. Our results showed that the mean age of cocoa farmers was 47 years, males dominated cocoa production (80.0%), and their mean years of schooling were 8.27. Most of them were married (93.3%), with a mean household size of 8. The net returns per 50 kg (₦8,281.8) from cocoa production showed that the venture was profitable. The return to scale was 1.5334, indicating that the production of cocoa is still in stage I of the production region, thus suggesting that some resources are inefficiently employed. Based on our findings, the study concludes that resources are not optimally allocated. The study, therefore, recommends that cocoa farmers should increase labor, agrochemicals and farm size for optimal combination of resources. However, farmers are advised to reduce the cost of spraying and fertilisers usage.