Zeitschrift für Agrarwissenschaft und Lebensmittelforschung
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Skills Required by Agricultural Education Graduates in Grass Cutter (Thryonomys swinderianus) Farming for Self-Employment in Kaduna State, Nigeria

James Timothy, Amonjenu Anthony *, Agbulu Nicodemus Ochani

Whereas the demand for bush meat consumption is high in Kaduna State of Nigeria, the demand can only be
sustained by creating self employment by agricultural graduates who have mastered the skills of grass-cutter farming.
This is why this study identified skills required by Agricultural Education Graduates in: planning for Grasscutter
farming, housing construction for grasscutter farming and breeding Grasscutter in Kaduna state. Three research
questions of what are the skills required by Agricultural Education Graduates in planning for Grasscutter farming,
housing construction for Grasscutter farming and breeding Grasscutter in Kaduna state were answered by the study
while three null hypotheses were formulated and tested at the 0.05 level of significance. The study adopts survey
research design. The study was carried out in Kaduna state using a target population of 241 made up of 48 animal
science lecturers and 193 agricultural extension agents across the agricultural development zones in Kaduna State.
The entire population was purposively used for the study. The instrument of data collection was a 30-items structured
questionnaire title “Glasscutter Farming Skills Questionnaire (GFSQ)” developed by the researchers from literature
reviewed. The GFSQ was subjected to face and content validity by three validates. The instrument was trial tested on
15 respondents in Plateau State and the result was subjected to reliability analysis using Cronbach Alpha method
which yielded a reliability coefficient of 0.91. The GFSQ was used for data collection by the researcher with the help
of three research assistants. Data collected for the study was analyzed using mean ratings and standard deviation to
answer research questions and t-test statistics to test the null hypotheses at the 0.05 level of significance. The findings
of study revealed 10 skills in planning, 10 skills in housing construction and 10 skills in breeding of grasscutter are
required respectively for success in grasscutter farming. Based on the findings of this study, it was recommended
amongst others that the identified skills in this study should be incorporated into the programme of the skills
acquisition centre’s in the state so that it could be used for retraining the unemployed agricultural education
graduates for self-employment.