Measures for Improving Harvesting and Cooking of Palm Fruits for Increased Palm Oil Production in Udi Agricultural Zone of Enugu State

Abstract

The study determined the measures for improving the harvesting and cooking of palm fruits by farmers for increased palm oil production in Udi Agricultural Zone of Enugu State. Two research questions and two null hypotheses guided the study. Descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. The population for the study comprised 250 respondents made up of 227 registered farmers and 23 extension workers in Udi Agricultural zone. There was no sampling because the population was manageable. The instrument used for data collection was a 17 item structured questionnaire developed by the researchers. The instrument was validated by three experts and Cronbach Alpha statistics was used to determine the internal consistency of the instrument. Reliability coefficient of 0.74 and 0.80 were obtained for the clusters and the overall coefficient of the entire instrument was 0.77. Out of 250 copies of the questionnaire distributed 237 copies were properly filled and used for data analysis representing 94.80% return rate. Mean was used to answer the research questions while ttest was used to test the null hypotheses at .05 level of significance. The study found out among others that timely harvesting of fresh palm fruits, using of fork machine to climb the palm tree and using boiler to cook palm fruits, soaking of palm fruits to soften it before mashing are measures that could be used to improve harvesting and cooking of palm fruits by farmers to increase palm oil production in Udi Agricultural zone. Based on the findings, it was recommended among others that the farmers should adopt the identified measures for harvesting of palm fruits for increased oil production. The
government should build oil processing mill on the study area to make it cheaper for farmers to use the facilities for cooking of palm fruits for increased palm oil production.