Willingness to Adopt Insect-Based Feed by Local Chicken Farmers in Enugu State

Feed constitutes a major cost component of poultry production and this cost has been steadily increasing with a resultant effect of the high cost of poultry and its products. Improving the sustainability of the poultry diet is important to meet the growing demand for poultry and its products.  It is thus important to seek ways of ameliorating the costs of feed, one of which is the adoption of insect-based feed (IBF) for poultry. The study thus aims to assess willingness to adopt insect-based feeds among local chicken farmers in Enugu state, Nigeria. It further assessed local chicken farmers’ awareness level, willingness to adopt IBF and perception of the benefits and risks of adopting IBF. It also identified socioeconomic factors affecting the willingness of local chicken farmers. Multi-stage random sampling technique was used in selecting 120 farmers in the study area. Descriptive statistics and binary logistic regression were used to analyze the data. The findings from this study showed that while 93.35% of respondents were aware of IBF, 90% of them were willing to adopt the technology. The factors influencing willingness to adopt IBF were information source (p<0.001), years of experience (p<0.01), income (p<0.01) and age (p<0.005). The highest perception rankings by the local chicken farmers on the benefit of IBF were that IBF lowers total reliance on commercial feed/foreign protein source, IBF will create employment opportunities and IBF will reduce feeding and production cost of local chicken. The most preferred insects by the farmers for IBF were yellow mealworms, termites and maggots. The findings also identified insufficient quantity of insects for IBF, insufficient information on IBF and unavailable legislation on IBF as the highest perceived constraints on the wide-scale adoption of IBF by local chicken farmers. The study thus indicates the momentum is right to move forward with this development and to take advantage of this opportunity to improve the productivity of local chickens and hence the income and socioeconomic status of local chicken farmers.