An assessment of farmers' knowledge of yam entrepreneurial skills in Ekiti State, Nigeria

Abstract

This study assessed the farmers' knowledge of yam entrepreneurial skills in Ekiti State, Nigeria. Two-stage random sampling procedure was used to select 580 respondents. Questionnaire was used to collect data. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the data collected. Findings show that the majority of the respondents had access to yam entrepreneurial business training/seminar (75.5%), sources of information through agricultural extension agents (86.2%), radio (83.3%) and fellow farmers (79.5%), non-member of any crop related enterprise group (66.2%). The overall farmers' knowledge of yam entrepreneurial skills was low among the majority (62.6%). Specifically, the knowledge level of respondents on cultivation skills (X=67.0) was high while managements skills (X=39.5), co-operation/networking (X=29.3), customer/marketing skills (X=27.1) and opportunity skills (X=21.3) of respondents were considered low. It was, therefore, concluded that farmers’ knowledge of yam entrepreneurial skills was low. Agri entrepreneurship training in management skills, opportunity skills, customer and marketing skills, cooperation and networking skills is recommended and encouraging the less educated yam- based entrepreneurs to participate in the agri-entrepreneurship capacity building training.