ABSTRACT

The study was conducted to evaluate the private sector agroequipment fabricators' contributions to agricultural development in Aba agricultural zone of Abia State. The specific objectives of the study are to: (i) identify the socio-economic characteristics of the privat3 sector agro-equipment fabricators, (ii)identify the types of agro-equipment fabricated, (iii) determine the level of patronage, (iv) identity the marketing outlets of such equipment, (v) identify factors associated with their fabrication and (vi) make recommendations based on the above. To achieve these objectives, structured questionnaire was used to obtain data from the identified thirty five (35) fabricators. Analysis of the data was done using descriptive statistics such as tables, frequency counts, percentages and ranking order as well as inferential statistics such as chi-square analytical tool. Results 1icated that sixty one per cent (61.7%) of the respondents had between 16 — 20 years of experience, majority (100%) of them fabricate agro-processing equipment. Eighty five per cent (85.3%) of the fabricators sold between 1 — 5 equipment per month due to low apparent demand and poverty amongst farmers while eighty four per cent (84%) of the fabricators market their products through order by farmers. Poor power supply ranked highest among the numerous problems militating against their activities. The null hypothesis which stated that there is no significant relationship between the activities of agro-equipment fabricators and agricultural development in Aba agricultural zone of Abia State was rejected while the alternative hypothesis was accepted since the calculated chi-square of 65.32 was greater than the tabulated at 5 per cent level of significance which is 12.59 (calculated X2= 65.32 > tabulated X2= 12.59). It was, therefore, recommended that Clusters should be established by government for the fabricators and equipped with adequate power supply and good roads. Also, credit facilities should be made available to the fabricators when unfriendly government policies should be abolished.