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Effects of Cuniculture commercialization on household poverty status in south western Nigeria

This study evaluated the effect of Cuniculture commercialization on household poverty in Osun State, Nigeria. Descriptive and inferential statistics of frequency counts, Foster-Greer-Thorbecke (FGT), Household Commercialization Index (HCI) and Tobit Regression was used to analyze data collected from 120 respondents randomly selected from the register of Rabbit Farmers and Breeders Association of Nigeria (RFABAN) of Ife/Ijesha Agricultural development Project (ADP). The results of the study show that Cuniculture is a male dominated enterprise. The modal age of respondents was 18-60 with 87.5% of respondents educated. Majority of respondents earned between NGN20000 NGN100000 monthly from Cuniculture. The study found that 16% of respondents were poor and living below the poverty line. The HCI of Cuniculture indicates that 54.2% of production was done mainly for household consumption. Access to credit and unavailability of markets were the major constraints with Household size and access to credit influencing the commercialization of Cuniculture. The study recommends that more people be encouraged to go into Cuniculture to serve as additional income to household; rabbit farmers become more market oriented beyond their present level; they organize themselves into cooperative for access to credits and market creation and that appropriate solutions be sought for the challenges encountered.


Introduction
Food production has not kept with Nigeria's 3.2% annual growth rate in her population (NBS, 2011).
This has created a crisis and a wide gap between local food production and nutritional requirements and consequently led to increased dependence on food importation and exorbitant food prices have led to wide spread hunger, malnutrition and poverty (OJO, 2003). In Nigeria, the supply of animal protein has not met the demand (AKINMUTIMI; ONWUKWE, 2002). This severe deficit has birthed efforts towards the development of micro-livestock since traditional livestock is inadequate to supply the adequate amount of animal protein needed for consumption in many households especially in developing countries (OMEJE, 2014).
Generally, livestock production could lead to higher income and rise in standard of life and living of Nigerians (AKINOLA, 2009). Micro-livestock production has the advantage of growing and reproducing fast small bodied animals for meat and other purposes and can play a significant role for poverty alleviation among smallholder farming community in Nigeria (OKOLI; CHIDI; EBERE, 2002). Rabbit farming also known as Cuniculture is the agricultural practice of breeding and raising domestic rabbits for their meat, fur, or wool. It serves as a rich source of protein and of serious economic importance but production is on a low and quite new to West Africa due to lack of awareness and other factors (AGWU; ANYANWU; MENDIE, 2012;TAKASHI et al., 2004). However, the health benefits of rabbit meat are its mild, savoury, extremely lean and it is the best for low cholesterol, low sodium and low-fat diets (ASIKADI, 2008). Its high levels of protein, iron and calcium is important in the treatments of arteriosclerosis, measles, epilepsy, chicken pox, asthma, poor eyesight and most importantly hypertension. They are a good source of income to several households in countries where the awareness has reached an optimal level (ODINWA; EMAH; ALBERT, 2016).
A higher percentage of the world's poor are farmers who depend on small scale farming as the main source of livelihood. As a result of this, agricultural development is touted to be a main and effective strategy for poverty alleviation globally (DE JANVRY;SADOULET, 2009;HAZELL et al., 2010;WORLD BANK, 2015;OGUTU;QAIM, 2019). The commercialization of small-scale farming means a change from subsistence farming to a more profit/market-oriented production which invariably leads to income raise, employment opportunities and poverty eradication (BARRETT, 2008;BELLEMARE;NOVAK, 2017).
Known as one of most efficient converter of feed to flesh, the Rabbits excel other livestock and only comes second to chicken in terms of growth rate, feed conversion efficiency (FCE) and meat quality (AGUNBIADE et al., 2001). The choice for Cuniculture becomes paramount in serving as an escape route out of poverty so that farming households can tap from the economic gold mine embedded in Cuniculture and it is exploited towards the total economic liberation of farming households.
With over a third percentage of the world's population living below the 1.90 US Dollars a day (UNDESA, 2010)  28 Akinsola et al. (FAO, 2006), the alleviation of poverty remains a lingering problem on the global level. WORLD BANK (2015); MURIITHI and MATZ (2015) on developing countries revealed that the commercialization of any profitable smallholder enterprise has positive impacts on the welfare, income, nutrition and other social economic development of households and thus serve as a potent tool to alleviate poverty and in improving farmer's welfare. With an estimated population of 1.7 million rabbits in Nigeria (NBS, 2011) and acceptance, popularity and profitability of rabbit production without any known religious or sentimental appeal Cuniculture in Nigeria remains in the hands of local producers who produce mainly for household consumption with little for sale to other consumers. Additionally, with the ban on importation of poultry products coupled with poor livestock production means that the supply of animal protein has not met the demand. Nontraditional meat sources are to be sourced and explored to combat these protein deficiencies in human diet. Hence the need for commercialization of this profitable agribusiness and Cuniculture interest groups step up their production.

Origin, Domestication, Distribution and Introduction to Nigeria
The domestic Rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) originated from the Mediterranean zones of the world with their domestication started by medieval monks raising them in cages for food (ADUKU; OLUKOSI, 1990). The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) was instrumental in the introduction of rabbits into Western States of Nigeria in early 1960 (OBINNE, 1992) with The Directorate of Food, Road and Rural Infrastructure (DIFRRI) carrying out large scale importation pure and improved breeds into Nigeria between 1988 and1989 (ADUKU;OLUKOSI, 1990). The imported breeds of rabbits have adapted successfully to the tropics and are now widely distributed throughout the country.
Rabbits are kept for their very nutritious, easily digestible and very low in cholesterol and sodium levels (OMOLE; OMUETI; OGUNLEKE, 2005), wool or fur production, research purpose and other factors such as their quick growth, small body size, quietness and docility, lack of cultural or religious restriction on rabbit products consumption and the less cost in of their feeding (OMEJE, 2014). FAO (2006) reports that on the average and approximate 200g of rabbit meat is need per person to balance animal protein deficiency and ensuring food security in developing countries. Variables such as increased access to education, trainings and credit to the farmers age, household size, total farm size, years of experience, distance to the nearest input and trainings and workshops in rabbit management practices, feeds, feeding and adequate disease management by the extension agents will promote Cuniculture commercialization in Nigeria (IKECHUKWU et al., 2016).

Concept of Poverty
Poverty may be relative and absolute poverty and this is if relative or absolute yardsticks are adopted in determining of the basic income needed to meet basic life requirements (RAVALLION, 2004). The NBS (2012) defined absolute poverty from the perspective of minimum requirements to manage a minimum standard of living. Absolute poverty is also a state of lack of resources to maintain physical efficiency (ETIM; EDET; ESU, 2009). Size of household, dependency ratio, gender of household head, assets (such as land, farm tools and other means of production, housing and jewelry), employment and income structure, health and education of household members are determinants of household poverty (KHANDKER; HAUGHTON, 2009;AKINBODE, 2013;OBISESAN, 2012).

Concept, Impact and Constraint of Agricultural Commercialization
Commercialization of agriculture is the production of crops and animals for sale and market participation to make profit (LEAVY; POULTON, 2007;JALETA;GEBREMEDHIN;HOESTRA, 2009).
Under this system, new technologies have to be adopted this include improved breeds, improved housing and efficient feeding techniques and veterinary services amongst other things to increase the profit margin of the farmer and for comparative advantage in making profits (MURICHO, 2015). Most times, commercialization is viewed from the perspective of being large scale and thus leaves out the truth that small scale farmers and poor households also participate in the market even though they produce a little surplus or perhaps there are other pressing needs of the family (NWAFOR, 2012).
Agricultural commercialization has three (3) key impacts/orders. The first order impacts are the immediate household effects on income and employment. The second order impacts are dependent on the first order impacts, second order impacts are health and nutrition both are dependent on the level of income; a first order impact of commercialization. The third order impacts are beyond the household levels. They are macroeconomic and environmental impacts (JALETA; GEBREMEDHIN;HOESTRA, 2009;MURICHO, 2015).
Land ownership is a key determinant of commercialization (FERRIS et al., 2014) lack of access to market could discourage commercialization (CHIRWA; MATITA, 2012). The benefits of commercialization such as higher product prices and lower input costs will not be available to small holder farmers when market access is poor (OMITI et al., 2009).

Household Commercialization Index (HCI)
HCI measures the levels of commercialization of Cuniculture in the area (as adapted from VON BRUAN; KENNEDY, 1994;DUBE;GUVEYA, 2016) and it is defined as follows.
A value of zero for HCI means total subsistence while a HCI value approaching 100 is an indication of higher degrees of commercialization which implies a greater percentage of rabbit production is marketed. The advantage of using Household Commercialization Index is that it provides the level of commercialization of each household.

Tobit Regression Model
The Tobit regression model is used to describe the relationship between a non-negative independent variable and a dependent variable. The implicit functional form of the model is expressed below as adapted from OLAGUNJU; AJIBOYE, ((2010).  Table 1 show that 90% of the respondents were males while just 10% of them were females which indicates that Cuniculture is a male dominated activity in the area. About 91.7% of the respondents were between the ages of 18 -60 years while only 3.3% were above 60 years. This shows that most of the respondents were in their prime. Furthermore, 80% of the respondents had a household size of between 1 -6 while 3.2% had their household size between 12 -17. The table also shows that 87.5% of respondents had one form of education or the other while only 12.5% had no formal education as corroborated by YUSUF et al., (2013). About 42.5% of the respondents got their primary source of income from Cuniculture, 75% made between NGN20,000 and NGN100,000 (USD 1 = NGN 381.25K) as their total income monthly with about 63.3% spending above NGN20,000 on food for the family monthly. On the source of farm capital, 85.8% of the respondents made use of their personal savings; other respondents got capital from the banks, self-help groups and from friends and relatives. Only 28.1 of respondents underwent some form of training to support their technical know-how in Cuniculture. About 27.5% of respondents had access to credit facilities while 72.5% which forms the majority of the sample did not have access to any credit.

Analysis of poverty status of the respondents using FGT Poverty Index
The poverty line calculated was NGN35,755.55 therefore any household below the amount in the poverty line was considered as been poor while any household whose income is above or exactly on the poverty line is described as non-poor. Table 2 show the poverty incidence (P0) was 0.16. This implies that 16% of the respondents were below the poverty line and were relatively poor. The poverty gap (P1) was 0.38.
This indicates that those that were poor required a 38% improvement in their income to reach the poverty line hence become non-poor. The poverty intensity or severity (P2) was 0.04. This value indicated that 4% of the respondents in the study were severely poor. Description of the poverty status of the respondents' households Table 3 show the level of poverty of the households involved in Cuniculture. All respondents whose FGT index was 0 were considered as poor while those whose index is 1 were regarded as non-poor. The results in the table above show that 86.7% of the respondents were non-poor in that their income was above the poverty line hence they could provide for themselves and their household basic amenities for proper livelihood. About 13.3% of respondents were considered poor as their income was below the poverty line.

Challenges in Rabbit Production
The Household Commercialization Indices (HCIs) of the respondents ranged from 0 -100.0%. Further analysis revealed that those whose HCIs were 0% were 2.5%, implying that such rabbit farmers produced mainly for household consumption (as food, gifts or storage) only. The modal group were those whose HCIs indices were less than or equal 30%. The mean household commercialization index of the farmers was 34.8%.
Analysis of the results also revealed that those whose commercialization indices fell below this average were 54.2% while 37.5% of the farmers had their commercialization indices greater than or equal to this average.
The mean household commercialization index (34.8%) as obtained in the study area implies that the Cuniculture practitioners still have a gap of 65.2% to achieve full commercialization in the production of rabbit. The implication of these results is that more than half (65.2%) of the rabbit produced by the rabbit farming households is used for household consumption while the remainder (34.8%) constitutes the product being channeled to the markets. Table 5 shows the challenges the farmers face in their production endeavor. Access to credit facilities (33.3%) was the prominent constrain to Cuniculture in the area while prevalence of diseases was the least constraints. However, inadequate markets, access to forage and abortion were other constraints of concern to productive Cuniculture in the area.  Table 6 shows estimates of factors that influence commercialization of Cuniculture in the study area.

Factors affecting Commercialization of Cuniculture in Area
Household size and access to credit were found to be significantly related to Cuniculture commercialization at 5%. Household size had a negative coefficient (-0.0217249) implying that an increase in the composition of the farming household would result in about 21.7% decrease in the ability of the household to be more commercialized as it pertains to Cuniculture. This may mean that the demand for meat and food is more in a large household than a smaller one according to apriori expectation. Therefore, rabbit production oriented towards the market will reduce as a result of increase in the consumption of the products at the home level.
Furthermore, access to credit also had a negative coefficient (-1.458412 rabbit farmers in the area made use of personal savings as their source of capital for the business with no external source of funding. This implies that lack of assistance in the form of credit and loans to the farmers would lead to a decrease in commercialization of rabbit by farmers. The model had a Pseudo R 2 value of 0.2878. This represents a good fit as the independent variables explain 28.7% of the variation in the dependent variable while other factors which were not considered by the model were logged up in the error term.

General recommendation
Conclusively, this study reveals that 86.7% of respondents were non poor while 13.3% were poor. On the whole, Cuniculture still had about 65.2% gap to fill in order to achieve full commercialization in the area due to the fact that more than half of the current production is consumed at the household level. Inaccessibility to credit facilities is the major constraint among others to Cuniculture while household size and access to credit are the factors affecting rabbit production in the area. Based on the findings from this study, it is recommended that Cuniculture be encourage and sustained as an off-farm activity that would serve as an