Perception of farmers towards private forest plantation establishment in Osun State

Abstract

This study was carried out to know the perception of farmers towards private forest plantation establishment in Osun State. One hundred and  seventeen (117) questionnaires were administered randomly to selected respondents from the nine (9) selected communities in the study areas, while ninety-three (93) questionnaires were retrieved. Multi-stage sampling technique was used to select respondents from the study area. The result of the finding shows that majority (65.6%) of the respondents have not heard about private forest plantation establishment, but most of the respondents (59.1%) had high level of knowledge on establishment of forest plantation. Majority of the respondents had low response based on perception towards private forest plantation establishment due to some factors militating against the establishment of forest plantation in the study area. The result of the analysis shows that there is significant relationship exist between some social economic characteristic of the  respondents and perception of the farmers to establish private forest plantation. It is therefore recommended that more farmers will be  encouraged to participate in private forest plantation through government involvement at various levels of activities in forest plantation  establishment as well as providing loans for farmers to establish forest plantation with pay-back period equivalent to the gestation period of the tree species.

Keywords: Perception, Private, Forest, Plantation, Establishment