PERCEIVED CAUSES OF LIVESTOCK INVOLVEMENT IN ROAD ACCIDENT: THREAT TO LIVESTOCK PRODUCTION AMONG WOMEN IN OYO STATE

This study examines women farmers ’ perception on livestock involvement in road accident in Surulere L.G.A of Oyo State, Nigeria. Surulere LGA was purposively selected because most of its communities are located very close to the highways. Multi-stage random sampling technique was used to select 120 respondents for the study while interview schedule was used to elicit information from respondents. Descriptive statistics (frequency counts, percentages, Mean scores and ranking) and inferential statistics (Chi-square) were used to analyze the data. Findings revealed that the mean age of respondents was 46.5 years with a typical rural woman having an average monthly income of N12,250.00; 73.3 % had one form of education or the other; 68.3 % were full-time crop farmers while 16.7%, 11.7 % and 3.3 % combined trading, civil-service, and artisan work with livestock farming. Majority (77.5%) of the respondents had goats, while 52.5%, 29.2 % and 33.3 % kept poultry, sheep and duck respectively as income generating enterprises. Chi-square analysis showed a significant relationship between respondents’ perception on causes of livestock involvement in road accident and some of their selected socio-economic characteristics (age = 0.00, education = 0.00 and experience = 0.00) of the. The study concludes that road accident constitutes a major threat to free-range livestock production in the study area. It is therefore recommended that road signs and speed breakers be constructed on highways that transverse the rural areas