PALMOIL ENTERPRISES' CONTRIBUTION TO HOUSEHOLD WELFARE IN IREWOLE LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF OSUN STATE

Palm oil is a very important crop around which several enterprises have been developed. Being an enterprise that enjoys significant patronage among rural dwellers, it is therefore important to know how it contributes to the household welfare in rural areas. This study examined the contributions of palm oil enterprises to household welfare, by analysing socioeconomic and enterprise characteristics of the entrepreneurs, constraints to their enterprises as well as their level of household welfare. The studywas carried out in Irewole local government area of Osun state. Multistage sampling procedure was used to select a sample of 90 respondents for the study. The result ofthejindings were analysed using descriptive statistics such as frequencies, percentages, mean and standard deviation while inferentialstatistics such as Spearman correlation and Binomiallogit regression model were used to drawinferences between the variables of the hypotheses. The study found out that most (33.2%) of the respondents fell within the ages of 51 and 60, 56.7% of them were female, 55.6% had primary education,82.2% were married and 58.9% of them had afamily size of between 5 and 7persons. It also showed that 77.8% of them are not among the poor households. Furthermore, the binomial logit regression revealed that there is no significant relationship between level of involvement in palm oil enterprisesand level of household welfare. The study established that the mostly realised constraints by majority of the respondents are inadequate manpower, lack of access to improved technology and transportation-related problems. It also showed that there is significant relationship between their levels of welfare and sex (t=-2.202; p=0.028), household size (t=-3.580; p=O.OOO)and number of dependants (t=2. 150; p=O. 032). The study further revealed that bad roads (r=0.258; p=O. 014) and poor transportation system (r=0.277; p=0.008) are significantly related to welfare level of the entrepreneurs. The entrepreneurs need to organise themselves so as to remove the individual transportation problems most of them encounter in their enterprises. The extension agencies need to assist the entrepreneurs to discover better technologies that can be used to overcome the problem of lackof manpower in the enterprise.