Analysis Of Sustainable Crop Production Practices Among Farmers In Shaki Agricultural Zone Of Oyo State, Nigeria.

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1 Global Journal of Human Social Science Vol. 10 Issue 6 (Ver 1.0) October 2010 P a g e 51 Analysis Of Sustainable Crop Production Practices Among Farmers In Shaki Agricultural Zone Of Oyo State, Nigeria. Ayanwuyi, E 1.,Ogunlade, I 2 GJHSS-C Classification FOR ,050304, , Abstract -This study investigated sustainable crop production practices used by farmers in Shaki Agricultural Zone of Oyo State. Structured interview schedule was used to elicit information from one hundred and forty four (144) crop farmers were selected through multistage sampling method.data collected revealed that sustainable crop production practices used in the study area included crop rotation, mixed cropping, mulching and planting of cover crop. The study further revealed factors that influenced use of sustainable crop production practices included excessive use of farmland (68.1%), visibility of the practice (67.4%), high population pressure (66.0%), more farmland fragmentation (65.3%), high relative advantage and limited arable land (64.0%)and environmental friendliness of the practice (62.5%). There were constraints that hindered the use of sustainable crop production practices in the area;, such included long term process (83.3%), effects on the soil (73.4%), labour intensiveness (69.4%), vulnerability of the land to erosion (68.8%), high rate of weed emergence (64.6%) and competition between crops for light, water and nutrient (62.5%) The study also established that sex, age, household size, land acquisition method, crop yield and years of farming experience were the significant determinants affecting the use of sustainable crop production practices. About 2 - Department of agricultural Extension and Rural Development University of Ilorin,Ngeria iogunlade@yahoo.com persistent application of chemical fertilizer that does not produce the require results. Ogunwale (2004) also reported that crop production in developing countries is characterized by losses in soil nutrients as a result of depletion in forest and water resources.united Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) (1992) Lele, (1991),Dunlap, (1996) asserted that assessing sustainable agricultural development were differ due to conflict between short term and long term goals, that had hindered the practical implementation of sustainability. Therefore, sustainable crop production should in principle include ecological as well as economic and social considerations because crop production depends primarily on natural resources. (Nether, 1992), Crop production is ecologically sustainable if the productivity as well as the ability to function or regenerate power and buffering capacity of the farming land are permanently maintained. Birch (2001),Younlong and Smit, 2004).Sustainable crop production is the management and utilization of the agricultural ecosystem in a way that maintains its biological diversity, productivity, regeneration capacity, vitality and ability to function so that it can fulfill the present and future significant economic and social functions that does not harm other ecosystem (Budelman,2002). Barbie (1990) and Bebbington (1992) reported that sustainable agricultural production is designed to take maximum advantage of existing soil nutrient and water cycles, energy flows and soil organism for crop production as well as aiming at producing crops that are nutritious without being contaminated with products that might harm human health. Butterworth et al(2003) observed that sustainable crop production practice rely on crop rotation, crop residues, animal manures, legumes, green manures, off farm organic wastes, appropriate mechanical cultivation and mineral bearing rocks to maximize and maintain soil biological activity, soil fertility and productivity. Therefore sustainable crop production practices minimize the use of non-renewable inputs that damage the environment or harm the health of crop farmers and consumers (Agric system 1998). This study therefore sets out to analyse the sustainable crop production practiceuse by farmers in Shaki Agricultural Zone of Oyo State. The specific objectives are to described socio-economics characteristics of the respondents, investigate the sustainable practices used by the farmers identify factors that influenced use of sustainable practices in the area and examine the constraints that hindered use of

2 P a g e 52 Vol. 10 Issue 6 (Ver 1.0) October 2010 Global Journal of Human Social Science such practices in the area. It was hypothesized that there was no significant relationship between selected socio-economic characteristics of the respondents and the level of use of sustainable practices. I. METHODOLOGY The study was conducted in Shaki Agricultural Zone of Oyo State. This zone consists of nine agricultural extension blocks out of which four, namely, Igbeti, Igboho, Ago- Amodu and Shaki were randomly selected for the study. Multistage sampling technique was used to select. one hundred and forty four (144) farmers for the study. Three extension cells, out of eight cells in each selected extension block, were randomly selected and three communities were randomly selected from each selected cell making a total of 36 communities were selected for the study. Four respondents where systematically selected from each community there- by making 36 respondents chosen from each extension block. Finally, a total of one hundred and forty four (144) farmers constituted the sample size for the study.structured interview schedule was administered on respondents through personal contact in their various communities. The usefulness of sustainable crop production practices were measured by using a three point continuum, namely Useful, Moderately Useful, and Not Useful, which were assigned scores of 3, 2, and 1 respectively. The ranking of use of sustainable practices was done on the basis of their weighted mean values.the data collected were subjected to descriptive statistics, such as frequency counts, percentages and means. However, for testing research hypothesis multiple regression was used. II. RESULT AND DISCUSSION 1) Socio-economic characteristics of the respondents Data in Table 1 show that 87.5% of the respondents were male, while 12.5% were female. About 96% of the respondents were aged between 31 and 60 years, 2.8% were above 60 years of age, while 1.4% of the respondent were below 30 years of age. Data show that 96.5% of the respondents were married, 8.7% were widowed while only 1.4% were divorced. Finding show that 95.8% of the respondent acquired their farming land through inheritance. This implies that majority of farmers inherited their farm land. This findings conforms with Adewale (1999) and Kuponiyi (2003) who reported that 62.8% and 66.3% of the respondents respectively inherited their farmland thereby having absolute control on such land. Further analysis revealed that 83.3% cultivated yam, 55.6% maize, 51.4% cassava while 24.3% and16.7% cultivated groundnut and beans respectively.implies that annual crops were cultivated by the respondents as it is common in the traditional farming system in Nigeria. This finding agree with Okpara et al (2004) who found that grain yield (maize) was higher when intercropped with cowpea. It was also gathered that 61.1% of sampled farmers had more than 10years of farming experience. While 22.2% had between 6-10 years of farming experience, 16.7% had between 1-5 years of farming experience. 2) Crop Production Practices Used Table 2 shows that among the sustainable crop production practices, the use was highest in mulching with means value of 4.4 and rank order 1. The other sustainable crop production practices used were crop rotation and planting of cover crop with mean value of (M = 4.3) rank order 2 and 3 respectively. This implies that farmers wish to maintain their farming land soil fertility by using sustainable methods. 3) Factors influencing sustainable practices Table 3 reveals that 68.1% of the respondents indicated excessive use of farmland as the factors that influenced their use of sustainable crop production practices, further in the table (67.4%) indicated visibility of the practices 66.0% high population pressure, 65.3% more farm land fragmentation, 64.0% high relative advantage and limited arable land respectively, 62.5% practice is friendly to the environment, 58.3% reduction in crop yield. Also (51.0%) of the respondents indicated tri ability of the practice as the factor that influence their use of sustainable crop production practices, 50.0% indicated high effect of soil erosion while 33.3% indicated protection of natural resources for future. This implies that factors indicated were the ones that made the respondents to use sustainable practices in their crop production. The results conform with the findings of OECD, (2004) and Ikerd (1s990) who reported that sustainable crop production practices are more effective in reducing soil erosion and maintaining soil productivity than conventional practice. 4) Constraints to the use of sustainable practices Table 4 shows the constraints that hindered the use of sustainable crop production practices by the respondents. About,83% mentioned long term process in case of bush fallow and crop residue, while 73.4% mentioned effects of use of inorganic fertilizer on the soil. Others include labour intensiveness for pruning in case of leguminous crops( 69.4%) and liability of farmland to erosion in case of mixed farming(68.8%)this implies that respondents encountered some problems that hindered the effective use of the sustainable practices. This agreed with findings of Daniel et al (1996) Roberts and Lighthall (1992) who reported that many farmers felt that the transition to sustainable practice may not occur in their life time and doubted if sustainable practice would be profitable.also the result is similar to findings of Boz et al (2005) and Bamire and Amujoyegbe (2005). III. RESULT OF REGRESSION ANLYSIS in Table 5 shows that all the variables considered had positive relationship with the dependent variable and predicted 50% of the variations in the farmers use of sustainable crop production practices. This explain that the more experienced the farmers were the more the use of

3 Global Journal of Human Social Science Vol. 10 Issue 6 (Ver 1.0) October 2010 P a g e 53 sustainable crop production practices. This conform with finding of Younglong and Smit (2004) who reported that skill and knowledge gained by continuous use of sustainable crop production practices assisted the farmers to maintain soil fertility of their farming land. IV. CONCLUSION The study revealed that the farmers used sustainable crop production practices identified in the study area. It was discovered that the factors that influenced the use of sustainable practices included: excessive use of farmland, visibility of the practices, high population pressure, more farmland fragmentation, high relative advantage and limited arable land among others. Also the constraints that hindered effective use of sustainable practices identified included: Longer process, effects of inorganic fertilizer on the soil, Labour intensiveness, farmland liable to erosion, high rate of weed emergence and competition between crops. There was significant relationship between socio-economic characteristics and the use of sustainable crop production practices. Therefore, farmers indigenous knowledge should always be taken into consideration in policy formulation on agriculture and crop production should continue without damage to the ecosystem through regular training and information dissemination by extension

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10 P a g e 60 Vol. 10 Issue 6 (Ver 1.0) October 2010 Global Journal of Human Social Science V. REFERENCES 1) Adewale, G.J (1999) Analysis of rice farmers use of indigenous agricultural practices in Ogun State, Nigeria. Unpublished Ph.D Thesis Department Agricultural Extension services, University of Ibadan, 2) Agric systems (1998) Impact assessment study- National soil and water conservation programme ministry of Agriculture, Nairobi Kenya pp ) Bamire, A.S and Amujoyegbe B.J. (2005) Economics analysis of land improvement technique in small holder yam-based production systems in the agro-ecological zones of south western Nigeria Journal of Human Ecology 18 (1) 1-12 March 4) Barbier, E (1990) The farm level Economics of soil conservation: The uplands of Java Journal of Land Economics 66 (3) May 5) Bebbington, A (1992) Searching for an indigenous Agricultral development Indian Organizations and NGOs in the central Andes of Euador in Robert T. Wilson N, Michael R, Laura, S and Mahinda W. (eds) self-sufficient Labour and knowledge in small-scale farming. Earthscan publisher London ) Bisong, F.E (2001) Natual resources and conservation systems for sustainable rural development Nature publishing Group Minnesota USA ) Birch Thomsen, T. Fredriksen, P and Sano, H.O. (2001) A livelihood perspective on natural resource management and environmental change in semiarid Tanzania. Journal of Economic Geography 77(2) November 8) Blaikie S,P. Cameroon, J. and Seddon D (2002) Understanding 20years of change in west central Nepal: continuity and change in lives and ideas: Journal of World Development.30(4)pp April 9) BOZ, C. Akbay, E. Jorden G. and kamalak, A. (2005) Measuring livestock farmers effect on sustainable agriculture and rural development Journal of sustainable Agriculture, 2(3) 34-40February 10) Budelman, A (2002) Effect of the application of the leaf mulch of Gliricidia sepium on early development and tuber yields of water yam (Discorea alata) Journal of Agroforestry system 8(2) June 11) Butterworth, J. Adolph, B and Reddy, B.C (2003) how farmers manage soil fertility: A Guide to support innovation and livelihoods in Robert, T.Catherine, E. Caleb, M.Nelson, M.Wilson, N.Piyadasa, V.H. Micheal, R.Laura, S. and Mihinda, W.(eds) self-sufficient agriculture labour and 12) knowledge in small scale farming Earthscan, publisher London ) Daniel, D.Gilbert, L.David, W.Bruce, M. and William, C. (1996) Barriers to adopting sustainable agricultural practices Journal of extension34(6)1-10 August Ikerd, J.E (1990) Agriculture search for sustainability and profitability, Journal of soil and water conservation 45(8) June 14) Kuponiyi, F.A (2003) Involvement of private organization in agricultural extension delivery in south-western Nigeria. Ph.D Thesis Department of Agricultural Extension and Rural Development University of Ibandan ) Lele, S.M. (1991) Sustainable development; A critical review of word development Journal of crop science 39(2): September 16) Dunlap, R.E. Beus, C.E. Howell, R.E and Waud, J (1996) What is sustainable agriculture? An empirical examination of faculty and farmer definitions Journal of sustainable Agriculture 3(1) December 17) Nether, D. (1992) Ecological sustainability in agricultural systems definition and measurement Journal of sustainable Agriculture 2(1): April 18) Ogunwale, A.B (2004) Influence of land and tree use related factors on the adoption of Agro forestry system in south-western Nigeria. International Journal of Food and Agricultural Research 1(1and 2) ) Organization for economic cooperation and Development (OECD) (2004) Economic performance of sustainable farm management practices in Korea. Korea Rural Economic institutes, Seoul, Korea ) Okpara, D.A Awurun, A.N and Okeke, A I (2004) Effect of planting schedule and density on cowpea/maize intercropping in southeastern Nigeria Journal of Sustainable Tropical Agricultural Research. 1(1) March 21) Sara, J.S and Satya. Y. (2001) L and Degradation in the developing world: Issues and policy options for 2020 Brief 44 International food policy Research, Institute (IFPRI) Washington DC, USA ) Roberts, R.S and Lighthall, D (1992) A Development Approach to the adoption of lowinput farming practices Journal of Extension 34(6) ) United Nation Conference on Environmental and Development (UNCED (1992) Agenda 21- An action plan for the next century. Endorsed at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development Rio-Janeiro Brazil ) World Bank, (1995) Toward the development of an environmental action plan for Nigeria World Bank Report 2002 West African Departmental ashington D.C

11 Global Journal of Human Social Science Vol. 10 Issue 6 (Ver 1.0) October 2010 P a g e 61 25) Young I (2003) Agro forestry for soil conservation CAB International publisher Walligford oxo UK ) Younlong, C and Smit, B. (2004) Sustainability in agriculture: A general review on agriculture, Journal of Ecosystems and Environment 49 (3) May