Assessment of community factors influencing the effectiveness of improved cassava production technologies in Osun State, Nigeria.

Abstract

This study investigated community factors and their influence on the effectiveness of improved cassava production technologies in Osun State. Multistage sampling procedure was employed to select cassava farmers in the study. In the first stage, 40 percent of the LGAs in each of the 3 ADP agricultural zones were selected. In the second stage, two communities were purposively selected from each of the twelve LGAs giving a total of twenty-­‐four communities. The third stage involved the proportionate sampling of 25 percent of the population of registered ADP cassava farmers in each of the selected communities giving a total of three hundred and twelve cassava farmers. Data were summarized with frequency counts, percentages, mean and correlation coefficient. The results show that effectiveness of improved cassava production technologies was significantly and positively related to community participation (r = 0.128; p≤ 0.05) and infrastructural facilities (r = 0.157;p≤ 0.01). The results of the study reveal that leadership participation and infrastructural facilities have influence on the effectiveness of improved cassava production technologies. It is therefore recommended that infrastructural facilities such as access roads, electricity, cassava processing centers should be made available in the rural communities to facilitate the effectiveness and success of agricultural programmes. Also, farmers should be actively involved in the planning and execution of development programmes.