Entrepreneurial Skills Required by Farmers for Success in Rabbits Production Enterprise in Imo State, Nigeria

Abstract

This study was carried out to identify entrepreneurial skills required by farmers for success in rabbit production enterprise in Imo state, Nigeria. Survey research design was adopted for the study. To achieve this objective, five research questions were developed and answered, while five null hypotheses were formulated and tested. The study was carried in Imo State. The population of the study was 80 made up of 49 extension agents and 31 livestock farmers’ specialist in rabbit production. The entire population was used for the study due to their manageable size. A 99 item structured questionnaire was developed from the literature reviewed for the study and used in collecting data. The structured questionnaire was face-validated by three experts knowledgeable in rabbit production; two from micro livestock production and one from the department of agricultural education. The Cronbach alpha method was used to test the internal consistency of the questionnaire items to obtain a co-efficient of 0.87. The questionnaire was administered on 80 respondents; 77 copies of the questionnaire were retrieved and analyzed. The weighted mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions while t-test statistic was used to test the hypotheses. It was found out that all the identified skills were either highly or moderately required for success in rabbit production in Imo State. Based on the findings, it is recommended that the identified entrepreneurial skills for the production of rabbit be used by extension agents to train farmers in/out of school education system.