© Kamla-Raj 2012 J Hum Ecol, 40(3): 255-260 (2012) Rural Households’ Sources and Demand for Cooking Energy During Kerosene Subsidy in Oluyole Local Government Area of Oyo State, Nigeria M. Dare a , A. S. Oyekale b and O.O. Olugbire c a Department of Agricultural Economics, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria b Department of Agricultural Economics and Extension, North-West University Mafikeng Campus, Mmabatho, 2735 South Africa c Forestry Research Institute of Nigeria (FRIN), Ibadan, Nigeria KEYWORDS Biofuel. Kerosene Subsidy and Logit Regression. Nigeria ABSTRACT This study investigated rural households’sources and demand for biofuel, before and after kerosene subsidy in Nigeria. The data were randomly obtained from 120 respondents and analyzed with descriptive statistics and logit regression. Results of the analyses revealed that the main sources of biofuel before and after the subsidy were charcoal and firewood. The proportion of households that depended on kerosene increased from 49.2% before the subsidy to 60.83% after the subsidy. Also, 6.67% of the respondents indicated that kerosene was scarce after the subsidy, as against 41.67% that indicated same before the subsidy. The logistic regression analysis revealed that high income households, who were married and employed prefer firewood and charcoal before and after the subsidy. Therefore, to ensure a significant increase in the demand for kerosene in order to save the degrading forest resources, availability of kerosene is an important factor. INTRODUCTION In the 1970s, the wood fuel situation in de- veloping countries could be described as des- perately retrogressive. There were serious con- cerns because citizens of many developing coun- tries used more wood for fuel than was being regenerated by different projects and natural forest re-growth (Eckholm 1975; Eckholm et al. 1984). The expected implications were massive deforestation followed by environmental prob- lems, increased collection times and reduced energy consumption with some adversely com- pounded implications for households’ nutrition and healthy living. Based on those agitations, a number of interventions were launched during the 1980s and 1990s, in order to increase the supply of biomass as well as reduce the demand through substitution to other forms of energy. However, both the underlying assumptions and the relevance/efficiency of the resulting inter- ventions were already heavily criticized by the late 1980s (Priscilla et al. 2008). Wood fuel and charcoals are solid agricul- tural products classified as biofuel. They are ar- guably part of the most important products from the local forests, especially for the majority of rural poor in Nigeria. Similarly, forest resources are diverse and can be put into many uses. Peo- ple have therefore depended on forests and trees for their economic livelihood and improvement in quality of life. Forests, as an economic re- source provides food, fuel, fibre, timber and var- ious non-wood products (World Bank 1991; Sharma 1992). It should be noted that the purpose of do- mestic demand for energy in Nigeria is cooking. Government has realized that increasing popu- lation pressure is directly exerting more pres- sure on the fragile ecosystem, thus subjecting it to further degradation. An important aspect of this degradation is deforestation, which also subjects the nation to serious economic losses as a result of the compounded influence of cli- mate change, soil erosion, land degradation and declining agricultural productivity, among oth- ers. Although policy makers in Nigeria are very much aware of the fact that the urban and rural poor derive the highest proportion of their do- mestic energy from kerosene, promoting access of people to this essential product had been largely done with mere lip services. Abject ne- glect of issues that border on availability of ker- osene in Nigeria is therefore giving rise to prod- uct adulteration, which already resulted into loss of several lives, while many are permanently dis- abled. The marketers of the product are also fix- ing its price without due monitoring and proper regulation from appropriate government agen- cies.