Profit Efficiency of Traditional Pottery Technology among Peri-Urban Farming Households in Ilorin East LGA of Kwara State Nigeria

Abstract

The study analyses socio-economic characteristics and profit efficiency of traditional pottery technology in Ilorin East Local Government Area (LGA) of Kwara State, Nigeria. Primary data which were mainly used for the study were collected with the aid of structured questionnaire administered through trained enumerators. A total of 80 potters were randomly selected from 3 settlements. The main tools of analysis were descriptive statistics and stochastic profit frontier function. Majority of the potters (62%) have total investment of less than ₦100,000.00 with mean education index of 0.7 years, and 63% had access to credit through cooperative societies. The study also revealed that all respondents belong to cooperative societies with a mean of about 22 years of membership. All sampled respondents were female and 95% were married with preponderance of farmers (94%) as their spouses. Average price of standardized clay (p< 0.01), family labor (p< 0.01) and depreciated items (p<0.05) were found to be positive and statistically significant. The profit inefficiency was statistically significant (p<0.05) and positively influenced by potters’ experience while adjusted household size had a negative influence and statistically significant at 1%. This implies that potters with less years of experience exhibit significantly less profit. Household size was negative, indicating that additional increase in family labor could lead to increase in output. It is recommended, that pottery households should strengthen their formidable cooperative societies to access credit, organize training using community based informal education, to enhance increase quantity and quality products that translate into increase profit.