Assessment of Farmers' Participation in the Value Chain of Rice Entrepreneurial Activities in Kwara State, Nigeria

Abstract

Entrepreneurship means creating wealth through togetherness of resources in new ways to start and operate an enterprise. Farmers can explore the enormous opportunities associated the value chain as source of livelihood. Pitching tent as an entrepreneur around rice value chain will serve as another source of income to compliment the profit to be generated during cultivation. The rate at which rural farmers involve in value chain is not encouraging and this has given room for the activities of middlemen and maximize the advantage at the detriment of the farmers. The study assessed the participation of farmers in the value chain of rice entrepreneurial activities in Kwara State, Nigeria, with the following objectives: identify sources of information available for the Rice Entrepreneurs; describe the attitude of rice entrepreneur towards rice entrepreneurial activities; assess the participation of rice entrepreneurial activities in the value chain. Multistage sampling technique was used to obtain primary data from 400 respondents in the study area using structured questionnaire. Structured interview schedule Findings revealed that fellow entrepreneurs (0.89) and radio (0.79) were the major source of the information of the respondents. Majority of the respondent have positive attitude towards rice entrepreneur activities in the study area. Also the respondent were majorly into processing and marketing value chain. The study concludes that the respondent participated greatly in processing and marketing. The study recommends that the government to make policy that will mobilize more women into rice entrepreneurs activities to improve their standard of living and Agricultural extension agent should be more proactive in services delivery.