IMPROVING THE MANAGERIAL COMPETENCIES OF HONEY BEE FARMERS FOR POVERTY REDUCTION IN SOUTH EAST ZONE OF NIGERIA

Abstract

The study was designed to improve the competencies of bee farmers for poverty reduction and was carried out in South-East Zone of Nigeria. The population of the study was 781 respondents, which comprised of 590 agricultural extension officers and 191 registered bee farmers in the Zone. The sample size was 474 respondents comprising 372 agricultural extension officers and 102 bee farmers, drawn sing simple random sampling technique. The
instrument used for data collection was a structured questionnaire developed by the researcher. The instrument was face  validated by experts. The reliability coefficient of 0.75
was computed using Cronbach Alpha. Two (2) research questions and two (2) hypotheses guided the study. Mean with standard deviation was used to answer the research questions, while One Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance and at the appropriate degree of freedom. The data collected were analyzed and the result showed that the ten (10) competencies examined by the study regarded beehive management were possessed at low extent. The study also showed that the ten (10) strategies identified in the study were reliable enough to improve bee farmers competencies in
this competency area investigated. More so, the findings regarding the two null hypotheses revealed that hypotheses one (Ho₁) was not rejected while hypothesis two (Ho₂) was rejected. Therefore bee farmers improvement depend on the relevant and appropriate (farm education) extension education adopted by extension officers in delivering the extension package. Based on the finding, some implications were deducted from the study and recommendations were made, one of which is that all the identified competencies and strategies for successful bee farming should be incorporated into the extension packages for bee farmers delivered to them properly by extension officers.