Household’s Level of Awareness on Under-Utilized Legumes in Ido Local Government Area of Oyo State, Nigeria

Abstract

This study determined the level of awareness on underutilized legumes in Ido local government area of Oyo State. A simple random sampling technique was used to select 100 respondents for the study and structured questionnaire was used for data collection. Data collected were analyzed using both descriptive and inferential analyses. Majority (64.0%) of the respondents were male, middle aged with mean age of 45±11, 72.0% married and more than half (53.0%) were Christians. Also, (78.0%) of the respondents were Yorubas, majority (71.0%) had tertiary education, 52.0% were civil servants, 65.0% had less than 13 years of farming experience, (85.0%) had less than 11 acres of farmland. Majority (70.0%) of the respondents were aware of some underutilized legumes., ignorance was found to be the major constraints with highest mean value of 1.58, sourced information on underutilized legumes through radio with highest mean of 1.78. (95.0%) always process underutilized legumes into various forms of food (value chain). There was no significant relationship between marital status (?2=3.509), educational status (?2=3.111), occupation (?2=4.307), age (r=-0.026), farming experience (r=0.089), farm size (r=0.106), household size (r=-0.116), and level of awareness on underutilized legumes while there was a significant relation between sources of information on underutilized legumes (r=0.196, p<0.045) and level of awareness on underutilized legumes and there was no significant difference in the level of awareness of underutilized legumes among male and female respondents (t=0.002, p= 0.968). The study concluded that most of the respondents had high awareness of the underutilized legumes. It is recommended that adequate knowledge and awareness of the nutritional and medicinal value of the legumes should be given to respondents in the study area.