ABSTRACT

The study was conducted to investigate the effect of floriculture development on the livelihood of rural women in ikwuano L.G.A of  Abia state, Nigeria. The specific objectives were to: to assess and document the state floriculture in the study area, to evaluate the impacts of flower business on the livelihood of rural women in the area,  to determine the relationship between the type of flower grown and the income revenue. Primary data were conducted with the use of structured questionnaire. a total of one hundred(100) rural women were randomly selected. The result obtained was presented using descriptive statistics. The result revealed that 80% of the respondents agreed that the state of floriculture in the study area were influence by the cost of production, poor availability of flower species used in production, high rate of flower production while 10% of the respondents disagreed and 10% indicated no specific response. Challenges identified were based on responses of majority (> 75%) of the respondent encountered. The statistical test showed a significant positive relationship between the state of floriculture in the area and challenges encountered by women as (F1, 39 = 19.94,P<0.0001). The study concluded that floriculture in Ikwuano has not created sufficient jobs to make meaningful contribution to the improvement of livelihoods and reductions in poverty level. However, given proper attention and facilitation, floriculture has the potential to create numerous skilled and unskilled jobs for unemployed rural dwellers.