extension and adoption research
Description
This paper determined the relationship between demographic characteristics of respondents and the adoption of commercial rabbit production in Hai District. The word, “Demo”- comes from the Greek root word demos meaning “people” and “-graphic” meaning “description.” Thus, demographic characteristics are the description of people’s characteristics. In the study, the demographic characteristics that were considered include - age of the respondents, education level, sex, marital status, household size, average monthly income in (TSH). Commercial rabbit production refers to raising rabbits for income-generating purposes. Thus, the rabbit production in this paper is for business purposes. The commercial rabbit production has several benefits because all the products and by-products have commercial value. For instance, rabbit skins are used to make blankets and many items of cherished dress for children and adults, such as shirts, leggings, socks, hoods, purses, and modern cases. Rabbit urine and manure are used to manufacture organic booster and pesticide. Commercial rabbit production has been in Hai District since 2018 as introduced by the Saore Company Limited. Despite its several benefits and determinations made by Saore Company Limited to promote commercial rabbit production in the district, only 0.001% of the population is engaged in commercial rabbit production. Several studies have associated the adoption of innovations with demographic characteristics. Captivating commercialization of rabbit production as an innovation, this study wanted to identify demographic characteristics of the respondents that influence the adoption. The study did a research survey design to collect data from 170 (85 commercial and 85 non-commercial rabbit producers) respondents using a questionnaire. Data triangulation was done through key informant interviews. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to scrutinize the data whereby binary logistic regression model was fitted. The study found that, sex, marital status, household size, average monthly income in (TSH) positively influenced the adoption of commercial rabbit production in the study area.