Socio-economic and cultural factors that affect mushroom production in southwest Nigeria

The study examined the factors affecting mushroom production in three states, namely, Ondo, Osun and Oyo randomly selected in Southwest of Nigeria. The sample size of twenty fi ve mushroom producers was used for the study and this comprised all the mushroom growers in the southwest, Nigeria. The mushroom growers include two institutions and 23 individuals. The two institutions constitute (8%) while individual farms were made up of males (60%) and females (32%). The study revealed that 44% of the respondents were between 26 and 35 years of age, while 20% were between 46 and 50 years of age. It was found that 64% of the growers were married while 28% were single. The household size composition showed that 56% were between 1 and 5 while 36% were between 6 and 10. Only 36% and 32% of the respondents were found to consider taboos and other cultural beliefs, respectively, as important factors in their decision to grow mushrooms. Signifi cant relationship was found to exist between household size, information on mushroom production, cultural beliefs, storage and output size of mushrooms. With a gross margin of 4,129,000 Nigerian Naira (N) ($32,769.84) mushroom production was considered to be profi table. It was recommended that extension service should be stepped up to reach the rural dwellers with the message of mushroom production while equally educating the people on the source of input and production strategies.