Household Health and Returns of Arable Crop Farming in Osun State, Nigeria

Özet

The study examined the effect of household health on returns of arablecrop farmers in Osun State, Nigeria. A multi-stage samplingtechnique was used to select 240 crop farmers from whom data wereobtained from February to April 2019. Data collected were analysedwith the aid of descriptive statistics and multiple regression analysis.The hypotheses were tested using paired sampled t-test. The resultobtained showed that high proportion of the farmers were males withmean age of 44 years. Majority of the farmers were married andeducated with mean household size of 8 persons. The average farmingexperience of respondent was 16 years with mean farm size of2.28ha.They have average income of N258, 412.5k. The most commonillness was malaria. The result showed that 42.1% of farm income waslost to treatment of illnesses. Majority of the people patronizetraditional medication whenever they are sick. The variables that hadnegative and significant relationship with profitability in the modelwere age, household size, number of time ill, number of days lost andcost of treatment. Farm size and farming experience bore positive signand had significant relationship with arable crop farmer’s profitabilityat 1% 5% and 10% probability. The result of the t-test result showedthat illness affect number of days worked, output, income andexpenditure of farmers. It was recommended that more affordablehealth service providers should be provided to reduce cost.