Involvement of Women in Cocoa Post-Harvest Activities in Umuahia Agricultural Zone, Abia State, Nigeria

Abstract

This study investigated Involvement of Women in cocoa post-harvest activities in Umuahia Agricultural Zone, Abia State, Nigeria. A multi-staged sampling technique was employed in the sampling of 80 plantain processors that took part in the survey. A set of questionnaires was used to get responses from the women. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data. Findings from the study showed that the mean age of the women was 44 years with a mean household size of 5 persons and mean years of experience in cocoa post-harvest activity was 9 years. Furthermore, the women are mainly involved in Marketing (100.00%), Gathering of pods (98.75%), Breaking of pods (97.5%), Drying (97.5%), Storage (95.00%) and fermentation of beans (91.25) with a grand mean of 2.88 indicating a high level of involvement in cocoa post-harvest activities. The Regression analysis indicated that significant relationship exists between the socio-economic characteristics of the women and their level of involvement in cocoa post-harvest activities. The study concluded that there’s high level of involvement of the women in cocoa postharvest activities in the study area and therefore recommended that Government and other donor agencies should assist the young women to access credit facilities from financial institutions to enable them expand their cocoa farming enterprise, earn more income and ensure food security for their households.