PERCEPTION OF OIL PALM FARMERS ON INTERCROPPING FARMING SYSTEM IN OVIA NORTH EAST LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF EDO STATE, NIGERIA

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1 PERCEPTION OF OIL PALM FARMERS ON INTERCROPPING FARMING SYSTEM IN OVIA NORTH EAST LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF EDO STATE, NIGERIA ABSTRACT Igene *, L., Uduagele, C., Orji, G., Awanlemhen, F. O. and Ogbesoyen, O. *Extension Division, Nigerian Institute for Oil Palm Research, Benin City, Edo State. The study examined perception of oil palm farmers on intercropping farming system. The study was carried out in Ovia North East Local Government Area of Edo State, Nigeria, with the specific objectives of assessing the selected socio-economic characteristics of farmers, identifying the major crops intercropped with oil palm by the farmers, examining farmers sources of information on intercropping system, examining farmers knowledge of intercropping system, as well as assessing farmers perception about intercropping system. Eighty oil palm farmers randomly selected from five communities were sampled. A well-structured questionnaire was used for data collection, while percentage, frequency count and mean scores were used to summarize data. Results obtained show that farmers in the study area are mostly male with age bracket of between 31 and 50 years, married, and have both primary and secondary education. Major crops intercropped with oil palm by the farmers were maize, cassava and yam. Farmers most used sources of information on intercropping system were mobile phones, radio and fellow farmers. Farmers in the study area have a high knowledge of intercropping system and favourable perception towards intercropping system. The study therefore recommends that farmers should be motivated through credit facilities and series of training on technical-know-how of intercropping system in order to ensure sustainable production of food, and local languages should be used to carry out sensitisation programmes on intercropping system. Keywords: Oil palm, Knowledge, Perception, intercropping system INTRODUCTION Man looks for food as a response to that great natural force of compulsion called hunger (Timothy, 2002). But man engages in farming to provide the nutritional needs of human society. For reliable supply of such needs, either for individuals or the populace, it has become necessary for farming operations to evolve from individual to collective efforts. These needs of man were initially satisfied by gathering and hunting in the garden of nature. As man grew and developed, farming activities had to be re-organized according to the dictates of the environment and time (Timothy, 2002). Those activities, factors or elements, put together by the farmer to achieve a specified objective, constitute a system. Adebowale and Amusat, (2005) defined intercropping system as the practice of growing two or more crops on the same piece of land at the same time crops that differ in productivity, growth habit and morphological characteristics. Though this does not mean that in the intercropping, plants can be planted at a time together, but the purpose is that two or more crops are together in one place, during their growing season or at least in a time frame. Therefore is possible that the plants are different in terms of planting time, and a plant is planted after the first plant (Mazaheri et al., 2006; Ofori and Stern, 1987). For example, in an oil palm plantation, the oil palms are first planted at the recommended planting spacing of 9 metres in triangular arrangement with a wide space of 7.62 metres existing between the palm rows. This wide inter-row space may then be utilized for growing other crops particularly food crops. Such crop as plantains, cocoyam, cassava, melon, cowpea, pineapple, groundnut, rice, yam and maize may be economically intercropped with the oil palm using adequate spacing for the food crops up to the fifth year (NIFOR, 2008). Also, shade tolerant crops such as pepper, cocoyam and pineapple according NIFOR, (2008) can still be grown with the inter-row space beyond the five years limit. The most common goal of intercropping is to produce a greater yield on a given piece of land by making use of resources that would otherwise not be utilized by a single crop (Ouma, G and Jeruto, 2010). The benefits of intercropping with oil palms in the field according to NIFOR, (2008) are adding value to the oil palm when the food crops are harvested and sold, and particularly so in the early years when the oil palm has not started to yield fruit bunches. Secondly, the planting of the food crops between inter-rows of the oil palm facilitates field maintenance of the plantations, as the field is kept clean of competing vegetation through weeding of the food crops and finally overall maintenance cost is reduced since labour cost for weeding the intercropped area was also applicable to the oil palm hence the double cost of maintenance is avoided. Other benefits include giving structural support to lodging-prone plants that are prone to tip over in wind or heavy rain, may by their companion crop (Trenbath, 1976). Creepers can also benefit from structural support. Some plants are used to suppress weeds or provide nutrients (Pleasant, 2006). Delicate or light-sensitive plants may be given shade or protection, or otherwise wasted space can be utilized. Intercropping of compatible plants also encourages biodiversity, by providing a habitat for a variety of insects and soil organisms that would not be present in a NJAFE VOL. 11 No. 2,

2 single-crop environment. This in turn can help limit outbreaks of crop pests by increasing predator biodiversity (Altieri and Clara, 2004). Additionally, reducing the homogeneity of the crop increases the barriers against biological dispersal of pest organisms through the crop. Crops yield increases with intercropping due to higher growth rate, reduction of weeds, pests and diseases and more effective use of resources. Pest and disease damage in intercropping is less than pure cropping, due to pest or pathogen attract by the second crop species (Sayed and Hamdollah, 2011). Soil fertility increases by using plants of leguminosae family in intercropping, due to the increasing amount of biological nitrogen fixation (Sayed et al., 2011). It is in view of the above mentioned benefits inherent in practising intercropping system and coupled with the fact that oil palm trees are the major tree crops cultivated in the study area along with some food crops like yam, cassava, maize etc. that this study seeks to understand the perception of farmers on the intercropping farming system in the study area. Therefore, the specific objectives were to describe selected personal characteristics of the oil palm farmers in the study area, identify the major crops intercropped with the oil palms by the farmers in the study area, identify the farmers sources of information on intercropping system, ascertain farmers knowledge on intercropping system, and examine farmers perceptions level on intercropping systems in the study area. METHODOLOGY This study was conducted in Ovia North East Local Government of Edo State. The Local Government Area lies between latitudes 5 40' and 7 40' North and longitudes 5 00' and 6 30' East and occupies a total land mass of 2,301 km 2 with a total population census of persons (National Population Census, 2007). The main river, the Ovia River, flows through all communities in the LGA and the major occupations of the people include farming, hunting, trading and fishing, while oil palm trees, cocoa, cassava, maize, plantain and yam are the major crops grown by the people. Five communities, namely, Aihuobabekun, Igbekhue, Iyowa, Okada and Okokhuo were purposively selected from 40 communities because of the high numbers of oil palm farmers in the area. From the five communities, 16 oil palm farmers were randomly selected from each of the communities giving a total sample size of 80 oil palm farmers. Data were collected from the primary sources (respondents) with the aid of a well-structured questionnaire. In order to characterize the respondents on their socio-economic characteristics, data on age, gender, marital status, educational background, were collected. In ascertaining perception of oil palm farmers on intercropping system, a five-point Likert type scale with options of strongly agree, agree, undecided, disagree and strongly disagree with nominal values of 5,4,3,2 and 1 respectively was used to obtain responses from oil palm farmers. The data collected were analysed with the aid of the descriptive statistical tools of frequency count, percentage and mean scores while objectives four and five were analysed using percentage mean scores and weighted mean scores. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Socio-economic characteristics of respondents Table 1 shows the distribution of farmers according to their socio-economic characteristics. Majority (93.75%) of the respondents were male while 6.25% were female. The implication of this is that a high percentage of oil palm farm plantation owners in the study area were male.this is in line with the findings of Solomon (2008) and Oyesola, Olutokunbo and Ibikunle, (2011) that females in this part of the country are usually engaged in postharvesting operations such as transportation, processing and marketing of agricultural produce. Also, about 71% of the respondents were between the ages of 31and50 years. This implies that majority of the respondents were below 50 years, which means that they are in their active and productive stage of their lives, so there is a lot of prospect for the palm industry in the area. Table 1 also revealed that 92.5% of the respondents were married while 7.5% were widowed, which explains that a greater percentage of the respondents have persons living in their households. Furthermore, 83.75% of the respondents have either primary or secondary education, 13.75% have tertiary education and 2.5% have no formal education. This is an indication that large percentages of the farmers in the study area have attained some level of education, which may help in their adoption of intercropping system. Respondents according to the major crops intercropped with oil palm Major crops intercropped with oil palm in the study area are referred to as crops commonly grown in large quantities for the purpose of consumption and sales. Table 2 shows that maize (100%), cassava (100%) and yam (90%) were the major crops intercropped with oil palm in the study area. This may be as a result of the agro ecological environment that favours the cultivation of these crops and also for their economic values. Also, other crops of importance that were intercropped with oil palm were cocoyam (56.25%), pineapple (37.5%), pepper and tomato (31.25%) respectively. Respondents sources of information Table 3 reveals that the major source of information utilized by respondents was mobile phones (97.5%). This finding corroborates the reports by Morrow (2002) and Oyesola and Oladeji (2008) on the use of communication technologies among farmers. Mobile phones are now being commonly used by farmers to get information on various farming needs by calling their relatives and friends who are in urban centres through phones. The high NJAFE VOL. 11 No. 2,

3 usage of mobile phones may be as a result of its availability and affordability. In the same vein, radio (95%) and fellow farmers (87.5%) were also mostly used by the respondents as sources of information in the study area. This result also agrees with Ajayi (2003) who find the use of radio as the most popular source of information among farmers in South-west Nigeria. However, internet has the lowest percentage (3.8%). This implies that despite the progress in technology, most of the respondents are still not utilizing internet as a source of information, this may be due to the complexity of its use and lack of interest. Table 1: Distribution of respondents according to socioeconomic characteristics (n = 80). Table 2: Distribution of respondents according to the crops intercropped with oil palm (n = 80) Socio-economic Characteristics Age Below Above 51 Gender Male Female Marital Status Married Widowed Educational Background No formal education Primary education Secondary education Tertiary Frequencies Percentages Crops Frequency Percentage Maize Yam Cassava Plantain\banana Tomato Pepper Sweet potato Cocoyam Pineapple Table 3: Distribution of respondents according to sources of information (n = 80) Sources of information Frequency Percentage Mobile phones Television Friends Radio Fellow farmers Internet Extension agent Respondents knowledge of intercropping system Among the nine knowledge statements on intercropping system, the overall percentage mean score is 61.5% (table 4). This shows a high level of knowledge about intercropping system by the respondents. Specifically, 89% correctly indicated that intercropping system increases farmers income, utilizes the land maximally (77.5%); harvesting of one crop can damage the other crops (75%) and it acts as insurance against failure of crops due to abnormal weather and soil condition (68.3%). Although most of the respondents gave correct answers to the stated knowledge statements of intercropping system, (66.5%) of the respondents incorrectly indicated intercropping system decreases the use of fertilizer while (62.5%) indicated that there is no competition among crops. Table 4; Distribution of respondents according to knowledge of intercropping system (n = 80) Knowledge Statements % of Correct % of Incorrect Response Response Increases farmers income Utilizes the land maximally Alleviate poverty Competition among crops Controls weeds Increase the use of fertilizer Provides shade and support to the crops Harvesting of one crop can damage the other crops It acts as insurance against failure of crops due to abnormal weather and soil condition mean score (%) Source: field Survey, 2014 NJAFE VOL. 11 No. 2,

4 Respondents level of perception of intercropping system Table 5 shows a high level of perception of intercropping system. Specifically respondents show high level of perception of intercropping system such as it leads to increase in soil fertility when leguminous crops are planted (weighted mean score = 4.6), leads to a greater yield of crops produced on a given piece of land by making use of resources that would otherwise not be utilized by a single crop (weighted mean score = 4.48), give protection or shade to delicate or light sensitive plant (weighted mean score = 4.38), help to limit outbreaks of crop pests by increasing predators biodiversity (weighted mean score = 4.25) and it may hinder the evacuation predators fresh fruit bunches ( = 4.04). However, some respondents also show low level of perception of intercropping system such as pests and disease damage could be more devastating in intercropping system than mono-cropping system (weighted mean score = 1.98), it is always difficult to practice (weighted mean score = 1.96) and it may reduce farmers income (weighted mean score = 1.61). Table 5: Distribution of respondents level of perception of intercropping system (n=80) Perception statements Total score Weighted mean score Intercropping may lead to a greater yield of crops produced on a given would otherwise not be utilized by a single crop Intercropping may reduce farmers income Intercropping could lead to increase in maintenance cost of oil palm field Intercropping could give structural support to lodging prone plane that are prone to tip over in wind or heavy rain Intercropping may give protection or shade to delicate or light sensitive plant. Intercropping may lead to wastage of land Intercropping may help to limit outbreaks of crop pests by increasing predators biodiversity Pests and diseases damage could be more devastating in Intercropping system Intercropping may lead to increase in soil fertility when leguminous crops are planted Evacuation of harvested fresh fruit bunch may be hindered when Intercropping system is practiced Intercropping system is always difficult to practice Total mean perception score Mean ( X ) Source: field Survey, 2014 Decision Rule: 3.17 = High perception, <3.17 =Low perception CONCLUSION Based on the findings of this study, it can be concluded that the farmers were mostly men, married and well educated. The major crops grown by the farmers in the study area are maize, cassava and yam, key staple crops in the region. The farmers had access to information on intercropping system through various sources of which only mobile phones, radio and fellow farmers as the most used sources of information. Majority of the farmers had good knowledge of intercropping system and higher percentages of the respondents have favourable perception towards intercropping system in the study area. RECOMMENDATIONS Based on the conclusion of this study, the following recommendations are made: i. farmers should be motivated through credit facilities and series of training on technical-know-how of intercropping system in order to ensure sustainable production of food, since the farmers have favourable perception towards intercropping system. ii. sources of information like mobile phones and radio should be used in local languages to carry out sensitisation programmes on intercropping system in the study area. REFERENCES Adebowale, E. A. and Amusat, A. S The Concept and Practice of Refills in Southwest Nigeria.2005 Edition. p 22 Ajayi, M. T Analysis of Mass Media use for Agricultural Information by Farmers in Egbeda Local Government Area of Oyo State, Nigeria.Journal of Extension Systems.19 (2): Altieri, M. A. and Clara, I. N Biodiversity and Pest Management in Agroecosystems, Second Edition. Psychology Press. Mazaheri, D., A. Madani and M. Oveysi, Assessing the land Equivalent Ratio (LER) of two corn (Zea mays L.) Varieties Intercropping at various Nitrogen levels in Karaj, Iran. Journal of Central European Agriculture, 7(2): NJAFE VOL. 11 No. 2,

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