The contribution of Boer goat production to the livelihoods of NAADS farmers in Iki-iki sub county Budaka district.

Abstract

Boer goat production is considered to be one of the best enterprises known to boost household nutrition and income. In Uganda Boer goats were introduced in the early 1990s by the NGOs, GBOs, Religious organizations and government programs like NAADs and NUSAF. The study was conducted in Ikiiki Sub County Budaka district to assess the contribution of Boer goat production to the livelihood of farmers under NAAD:) program. A total of 100 respondents were interviewed and 60 were Boer goats farmers while 40 were non Boer goat farmers. The respondents were selected randomly from the 1.0 randomly selected villages. Semi structured. questionnaires were administered to the farmers through the face to face interviews and the responses were recorded. The questionnaire captured the information on, the socio economic characteristic of fanners. The data collected was analysed, using SPSS version 16 and the results presented using table, pie charts and tables. The farmers revealed that they were keeping the Boer goats majorly for income (58%) and most of them (67%) consumed meat monthly. The study further indicates that most of the respondents (70%) had the total annual income less than 5 million and 45% and 40% obtained 1/8 and 1/4 of the annual income from goats while the few 2% Who had specialized in goat rearing, had over 2/3 of their total income (20 Million) from goats. The result further shows that 41 % of respondents said that Boer goats farming contributed greatly to the total house hold annual income inflow and nutrition as compared to the other enterprises, However, it can be recommended that extension services to farmers should focus on attitude change, the local government through NAADs should sensitize fanners on good enterprise selection and mix for commodity specialization and also higher level commodity production and marketing organization should be established where Boer goat fanners could access market services at affordable terms to benefit from economies of scale