Socio-economic Factors Associated With Gum Arabic Production in Nigeria

The study analyzed the socio-economic factors associated with gum arabic production in Nigeria. Data were collected using structured questionnaires administered to 1184 gum arabic farmers in 15 States using a simple random method. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The results show that 47.4% had no formal education and it was also revealed that 94.8% of farmers’ lands were freehold and 10.8% of the farmers had over 20 hectares of land in reserve. The study also revealed that gum arabic production in Nigeria is mainly from the wild as there are 2.45 million hectares of wild grove in forest reserve while 1625 ha and 9766 ha of organized planting were owned by government and private sector respectively. Recommendations for improvement are provided.