ABSTRACT

The study was designed to determine the level of adoption of improved snail production technologies by farmers in Obowo Local Government Area of Imo State. The study has the following objectives, determine the socioeconomic characteristics of the farmers identify the various technologies used by the farmers, and estimate the profitable off adopters and non-adopters of improved technologies. The t-test was adopted to test the difference in profit level between the adopters of improved snail technologies at 5% significance level. The result of the study shows that 75.6% of the adopters are male while the remaining 24.4% are females also among the non-adopters 63.3% were male farmers while 36.75% were females showing greater number of male farmers. The study also discovered some improved technologies such as species. feed and housing as being the ones available for adoption. The result shows that 80 percent of the respondents had adoption index ranging between 1-25 percent. While 11 .1 percent of the respondents had adoption index ranging between 26-50. This result implies that majority of the respondents had low adoption level since the adoption index is far below 50 percent. However. the technologies adopted had different levels of adoption. A BCR of 1.51 57 and 1.311 8 for the adopters and non-adopters shows that the business was more profitable for the adopters. Also at5% significant level, the t-test showed that there is a significant difference in the profit level since t-calculated [2.028] is greater than t-tabulated [1.34]. Climate change was a major constraint for the adoption having 64.4% response while for the non-adopters feeding 66.7%l was a major constraint. The study therefore recommends provision of low interest loans to farmers. provision of subsidies farm inputs such as ago chemicals and increase in extension services to boost production in the study area.