Effect Of Rural Roads And Marketing Infrastructure On Income Of Farming Households In Osun State - Implications For Sustainable Development

Technological development practices that enhance and support entrepreneurship are essential because they cultivate innovation which, in turn, creates new jobs, new wealth, a better quality of life and sustainable development. The downward trend in Osun rural smallholder farmer's income highlights the need to examine the effect of road and market infrastructure on their income. Specifically, the study proceeded to identify the socio-economic characteristics of the rural farmers, identify other various rural services infrastructure available to the respondents, examine the effect of road condition and market infrastructure on the income made by farmers. A multistage random sampling was used to select 260 respondents from the study area. Questionnaire and interview schedule were used to collect data from the respondents. The analytical techniques used are descriptive statistics, regression analysis, ANOVA and T-test. The result revealed that a high percentage of the respondents are married (81.5%) and male (90.0%) respectively. 75.0% of the respondents are of the opinion that transportation cost affect income, 55.0% and 53.3% affirm that market infrastructures have effect on farmers' produce and income respectively. It also showed that most essential infrastructures such as pipe borne water, electricity, bank, market stalls, are lacking in the study area. Those present are in fair condition and the annual income are being affected by distance from market, condition of road from the farm to the market, other occupation and availability of tarred road based on the findings from the analysis of variance (ANOVA). From the paired t-test, availability/non availability of tarred road, condition of road leading to the market, occupation and distance from the market significantly (at 1%) affect the annual income positively/negatively. The implication of this study is that policy should address farmers' access to rural market services, which are sometimes in bundles, and the role of locating services in centers is pertinent as it stimulates agricultural and rural development. (Olagunju, F.I, Ayinde, O, Adewumi, M.O And Adesiji, G.B. Effect Of Rural Roads And Marketing Infrastructure On Income Of Farming Households In Osun State - Implications For Sustainable Development. World Rural Observ 2012;4(2):22-30). ISSN: 1944-6543 (Print); ISSN: 1944-6551 (Online). http://www.sciencepub.net/rural . 5