Adoption of Improved Soyabean Technologies in Processing and Utilization as Supplement with Local Foods in Bauchi Local Government Area, Bauchi State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study was carried out to determine the level of adoption of improved soyabean (Glycine Max (L) Merril) processing and utilization technologies as supplement with local food in Bauchi Local Government Area (LGA), Bauchi State, Nigeria. Bauchi LGA was purposively selected because there were many soyabean farmers in the area.  Random sampling technique was used to select three villages from Bauchi LGA. Random cluster technique was used to select 15 farmers from each village totaling 45 farmers as sample size. Interview schedule was used to source relevant information from soyabean farmers on their socio-economic characteristics and level of adoption of the technologies. Twenty soyabean improved technologies were selected for supplementation with local foods, to assess the level of adoption of these technologies. The result revealed that both old and young, ranging from 20 to 70 years were involved in soyabean utilization and processing. The result also revealed that majority of the soyabean farmers were small-scale farmers ranging from 0.1 to 4 hectares (ha) and family size ranging from 1 to 21 members. The respondents had many years of processing experience (1-15years) but were using local methods which may not eliminate the anti-nutritional factors in soyabean. Majority of the farmers were illiterate having only Quranic education (58%), 33% had formal education at different levels while, 9% had no formal education. The regression analysis revealed that out of nine socio- economic characteristics used as predictors, only household size and labour were positively significant (P<0.001) and processing was negatively significant (P<0.05) while, other six were not significant. These technologies were poorly adopted. Three of them were fairly adopted namely soya “awara” (cheese) (73%), soya daddawa (36%) and soya kunu (36%). Ten innovations were poorly adopted while, 7 innovations had zero adoption. The poor adoption of these soyabean improved technologies may probably be mainly due to lack of adequate education and inadequate extension services. To increase the adoption of these technologies, extension workers need to reach out to people by creating awareness through mass media and practical demonstration of processing methods. This is necessary because soyabean is good for the poor and the rich, also to both old and the young for good health and vitality.