| dc.description.abstract | Livestock rearing is still on a small scale in the country due to the rising demands for human food brought on by population growth and poverty. The livestock produced has decreased as a result of widespread livestock diseases and difficulty to access veterinary care. The study is aimed at finding out the social, economic and demographic factors which influence the number of livestock reared. In this study, Secondary data was to be used and was obtained from surveys by FAO and UBOS conducted in 2019. Linear regression analysis was used to investigate the effect of social, and demographic economic factors on the number of livestock reared in Masaka District.
Results indicated that most of the livestock was kept in the Kimanya-Kaboonera region (39.9%), Nyendo-Ssenyange (31.2%) with minority in Nyendo-Mukungwe (9.5%). Most livestock keepers were above 55 years (49%) and the minority were 30 years and below (15.2%). Majority had primary education (59.1%), secondary education (22.5%) and minority with above secondary education (18.4%). Majority of the farmers did not belong to groups (79.5%). Majority accessed and acquired credit services: minority from commercial and public credit providers (0.8%), those from farmer association (2.4%) and loans from the self- help groups (95%). Majority of the farmers’ other economic activity was agriculture (84.6%) followed by those with jobs outside livestock rearing (11.3%) whereas minority had household work (4.1%). Majority were in a distance 0f above 5 kilometers far away from the veterinary facility (86.4%) followed by those in a distance between (2 to 5) kilometers (9.4%) and minority were in less than 2 kilometres (4.2%). The main factors highly associated with the number of livestock reared were farmers’ other economic activity i.e., paid job outside livestock rearing (p=0.000) that meant on average, those with paid jobs outside livestock rearing kept 0.62 animals less than those engaged in crop growing activities, level of education that is to say, above secondary education
(p=0.000) which implied that on average farmers above secondary education kept 2.35 more livestock than those with no formal education and age of the farmer that is to say., above 55 years (p=0.003) which implied that those above 55 years kept 0.47 more livestock than those below 30 years. Those that Belonged to farmer group was also significant (p=0.042). The study showed that the farmers’ other economic activity, age, , level of education and belonging to farmer group influenced the number of livestock kept. This thus recommended that for better gain by the farmers, each needed to belong to farmer groups so as to easily acquire marketing services, and also educating farmers about the good practices of livestock rearing this will boost the productivity of farmers and also increase the number of livestock kept. | en_US |
