TITLE:
ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY AND ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF PROCESSING CASSAVA FOOD PRODUCTS IN OGUN STATE, NIGERIA
NAME: AGBENIGA Abiola [View Profile]
MATRIC NO: PG13/0841
PROGRAMME: Agricultural Economics and Environmental Policy
CENTER: Centre for Excellence in Agricultural Development and Sustainable Environment (CEADESE)
DEGREE AWARDED: M.AgSE
YEAR OF ADMISSION: 2014/2015 Session
DATE OF DEFENCE:
ABSTRACT
Environmental sustainability has become a global issue including the concern that cassava processors may be engaging in economic activities at the detriment of the environment in the process of generating profit. This study evaluated the economics of environmentally sustainable processing of cassava food products in selected Local Government Areas (LGAs) of Ogun State. Primary data were obtained from a cross sectional survey of 191 cottage cassava processors across four LGAs of the state through a multistage sampling procedure. Purposive sampling procedure was used to select Ogun State arising from the preponderance of cassava processors in the state and the last stage involved a snowballing technique to select cassava processors within each LGA. Microprocessors were categorized as high, medium and low capacity processors based on annual mean volume of 275.37, 67.68 and 4.70 tons respectively. Frequency counts, means, percentages, Ecological Footprint Index (EFI), Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI), Ordinary Least Squares (OLS), Tobit regression model and Budgetary Analysis were used to analyze the data. Results showed that 99.0% of the respondents were female, 80.6% were married and 44.5% of them had no formal schooling with a mean age of 46.47 years. Results further showed that cassava processors’ EFI and ESI were 24.96 gha/cap and -24.26 gha/cap respectively. Budgetary analysis showed an annual Gross Margin of ₦1,286,516.00, ₦5,675,475.05 and ₦6, 089,153.62 for low, medium and high capacity processors respectively. Most (77.0%) of the processors sold their products themselves at the open market. Some of the wastes generated from cassava processing includes cassava effluent (95.5%), cassava peel (86.5%) and chaff (10.0%). OLS revealed that processors’ age (β = 0.23), years of schooling (β = 1.00), household head’s status (β = 14.02), total revenue (β = 3.43×105) and the number of products (β = 12.73) increased EFI (p<0.01). Tobit showed that age of the processor (β = -0.23, p<0.05), years of schooling (β = -0.78), household head status (β = -14.07), total revenue (β = -0.001) and number of products (β = -12.73) increased ESI (p<0.01). The study concluded that the ecological footprints of the Processors are higher than the available biocapacity of 0.7gha/cap for Nigeria (GFN, 2016) thus indicating an unsustainable use of environmental resources for cassava processing. An unsustainable EFI and ESI of 25.12 gha/cap and -24.26 gha/cap respectively in the study area calls for a better and more efficient cassava processing technology that will enhance input-output ratio for cassava products and thus reduce the further depletion of available biological capacity and also reduce environmental resource uptake for cassava processing.