SOCIO-ECONOMIC FACTORS INFLUENCING ADOPTION OF RECOMMENDED COTTON PRODUCTION PRACTICES BY FARMERS IN ZAMFARA STATE, NIGERIA

SOCIO-ECONOMIC FACTORS INFLUENCING ADOPTION OF RECOMMENDED COTTON PRODUCTION PRACTICES BY FARMERS IN ZAMFARA STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract:

The bottle neck facing the production of cotton in Zamfara State is the use of traditional method of growing cotton by farmers which leads to poor yield and income from cotton production. Despite the introduction of RCPPs to farmers in Tsafe, Gusau and Bungudu local government areas (LGAs) of Zamfara State, farmers are far from achieving potential yield of 3.0- 3.5 t/ha against 1.3t/ha under farmers’ practices. This study was carried out to determine the socio-economic factors influencing the adoption of recommended cotton production practices by farmers in Zamfara State, Nigeria. The specific objectives were to: describe socio-economic characteristics and institutional factors of cotton farmers, determine the rate of adoption of RCPPs by farmers, the yield performers of cotton and income of farmers under RCPPs, socio – economic factors influencing adoption of RCPPs and identify the constraints to adoption of RCPPs. A two stage sampling procedure was used, three LGAs were purposively selected based on intensity of cotton production and coverage by RCPPs. Two communities were selected from each of the three selected LGAs. A sample size of 144 cotton farmers was selected for data analysis. Frequency, percentage, mean and multiple regression were used to analyse the data. The results show that the respondents had a mean age of 40 years. About 40 percent of the respondents had 38 – 48 numbers of people in their household. Also, (45%) of the respondents had koranic education, while the respondents had a mean of 11 years in cotton farming. Majority (65%) of the respondents had contact with extension agents but not too frequently. The results also show that the mean credit need of the respondents was N69, 208 but were only able to receive N18, 451 averagely. The results show that in 2001-2002, the use of good seed – bed preparation had the highest (30%) rate of adoption. Similarly, recommended spacing, use of SAMCOT-9, thinning, and seed treatment had 28%, 25 %, 23% and 21% rate of adoption, respectively. The rate of adoption of RCPPs increases from 2001/2002 to 2009/2010 except in 2005/2006 where the rate of adoption dropped as result of fall in price of cotton in. The findings, reveal that majority (66%) of the respondents reported a mean yield of 2300kg/ha. About 43% of the respondents got N120, 000/ha from sale of cotton. The results of multiple regression reveal that labour was negatively significant, while educational level, farming experience, extension contact, membership of social organization and affordability were positively significant at 5 percent level of probability with an R2 value of 0.58. It was discovered from this study that low level of education, inadequate and high cost of labour, insufficient fund, storage and marketing problem, were the major constraints faced by the cotton farmers. It is recommended that adult education and pre-season training should be organized for cotton farmers; farmers should form various co-operative groups for land, input, credit, labour and marketing of cotton in order to enhance the adoption of RCPPs and improved cotton productivity in the study area.

SOCIO-ECONOMIC FACTORS INFLUENCING ADOPTION OF RECOMMENDED COTTON PRODUCTION PRACTICES BY FARMERS IN ZAMFARA STATE, NIGERIA

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