Assessment of the Activities of Food Crop Gleaners in Delta State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study examined the activities of food crop gleaners in Delta State, Nigeria. It describes and assesses the socio-economic characteristics of food crop gleaners, crops gleaned, reasons adduced by gleaners for carrying out their activities, perceived benefits and factors affecting the activities of gleaners. Primary survey was conducted on 126 respondents selected through snowball sampling. The results obtained showed that most of the respondents were females (93.3%) and widows (65.0%), 90 per cent were over 50 years old, about 77.5 per cent had low-level education (either no formal or primary education); also about 67.5 per cent of the gleaners earn income below 5,000 naira per month. Hunger (98.33%), avoidance of wastage (74.17%), lack of land by gleaners for farming (98.33%) and to eke out a living (85.00%) were the main reasons adduced by the respondents for gleaning. The major constraint militating against the activities of the gleaners were scarcity of leftover crops on farm, discrimination against the gleaners, economic hardships in the country and biological factors. Regression result showed that four explanatory variables, namely gender, marital status, monthly income and household size were significant; unmarried females; low-income earners and those with large household were more involved in gleaning.