– Development of a Training Programme in Cocoyam Production for Enhancing Job Opportunities for Youths in South East Nigeria –
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ABSTRACT
The study was carried out to develop a training programme in cocoyam production for enhancing job opportunities of youth in South Eastern Nigeria. The study adopted research and development (R & D) design. The study was carried out in the South-East states of Nigeria, namely Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo states.
The population of the study was 5075 made up 21 lecturers, 292 extension agents and 4510 registered cocoyam farmers all from South-East Nigeria. The sample for the study was 763 made up of 21 lecturers of agricultural education in universities, 292 extension agents and 451 registered cocoyam farmers, all from South-East Nigeria.
The entire populations of lecturers and extension agents were studied while proportionate random sampling techniques were used to pick 10% of registered farmers. Three sets of questionnaires were developed from the literature reviewed by the researcher and utilized to obtain data from the respondents.
The three sets of questionnaires were face validated by three (3) experts. Cronbach alpha reliability method was used to determine the internal consistency of the questionnaire items and an overall reliability coefficient of 0.95 was obtained. Ten assistants helped the researcher to administer the questionnaire to three groups of respondents.
Data collected were analyzed using weighted mean to answer the research questions while ANOVA statistic was used to test hypotheses one to four and t test for hypothesis five; all at the probability of 0.05 and appropriate degrees of freedom.
INTRODUCTION
Cocoyam is a tuber crop that is highly valued by the people of South-East Nigeria because of its value. Cocoyam (Colocasia esculenta) is a tuber crop with broad leaves attached to long soft stem (Uguru, 1996). The long soft stem is connected directly to the corm.
Food and Agricultural organization (FAO, 2006) explained that cocoyam which is botanically called Colocasia esculenta is a tuber crop that is edible and belongs to the family of Araceae. It is an annual crop used as food in most parts of the world especially in Asia and Nigeria.
It is an annual tropical plant primarily grown as a root and leafy vegetable crop for its edible starchy corm, and leaves. Cocoyam has two major varieties namely Xanthosoma sagitifollium which is mainly referred to as tannia or new cocoyam. Xanthosoma variety originated from Central and South America in the 19th century; it then spread to other parts of the world.
The other variety (Taro Colocasia esculenta) which originated from India and spread to Egypt and Nigeria are of two types Eddoe which has relatively small corm and Dasheen which has a large central corm with numerous but small cormels. Edet and Nsikak (2007), identified two major varieties of cocoyam that are generally grown in Nigeria as Cococasia esculenta scott taro and Xanthosoma sagittifolium or scot tannia.
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StudentsandScholarship Team.
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