Assessment of the factors affecting the adoption of beekeeping among small holders’ farmers in Paiula sub-county, Pader district

Abstract

The main objective of the study was to assess the factors affecting the adoption of beekeeping in Paiula sub-county, Pader district. A Total of 72 smallholder farmers were randomly selected from Paiula sub-county for the study. During the survey, 18 beekeepers and 54 non- beekeepers were randomly selected. Results revealed that majority of the respondents were in the age bracket of 18-35 years (48.6%), 36-50 years old were 36.1% and only 15.3% were in the age bracket of above 50 years old. Majority of the respondents had attained primary level of education of 40%, those who did not go to school had 17%, secondary with 25%, tertiary institution had 12% and lastly those who had attained university level of education were only 6% of the respondents. Number of beekeepers who had spent 1-5 years in beekeeping were 33.3%, respondents who had spent 6-10 years were 38.9%, from 11-15 years were 22.2% and from 16-20 were only 5.6%. Question on people’s perceptions concerning beekeeping were only administered to only non-beekeepers and all of their responses were negatives, where 59.3% of the none adopters said that it is less comparatively good as like other agricultural enterprises, 27.8% of none beekeepers had the view that it occupy land for crop production, 9.3% said beekeeping bring hunger in the house and only 1.9% of the none beekeepers had the perception that allergies due to bee stings make it a risky enterprise. The major constraints hindering beekeepers were reported to be bushfires, theft and low colonization rate yet in actual sense bad weather, pests and diseases are also among those constraints being faced by bee farmers in Paiula sub-county but they were not reported by the respondents as seen in some few apiaries visited. The study concludes that the various factors affecting the adoption of beekeeping by non-adopters were reported as: No land for sitting apiaries in beekeeping (was ranked as the major factor with 37%), followed by no interest in beekeeping (33.3%), limited knowledge (13%), theft (9.3%), limited capital (3.7%), and fears of honeybees’ aggressiveness as the least factors affecting adoption.