Perception of arable crop farmers on agro-forestry practices in selected local government areas in Ekiti State, Nigeria

Abstract

This study examined the arable crop farmers’ perception on Agroforestry practices in Ekiti State, Nigeria. Multi-stage sampling technique was used to collect data from two hundred and forty (240) respondents. Descriptive and ordinal measured statistics were used in data analysis. The results showed that 93% of the respondents were educated, whereas, 59.2%, 62.9 and 72.9% of the respondents were married, male and Christians respectively and made up of farmers with age bracket between 31 – 50 years old, majority of the respondents had household size between 6 and 10 persons.
The study also showed that respondents who cultivated less than 1 ha of farmland were 49.6% while
those that had no access to formal credit were (84.2%). The results from Likert scale on farmers
perception based on the mean scores of (3.0) showed that 67.9% of the respondents affirmed that
Agroforestry practices was profitable and favourable. However, the major constrains to Agroforestry
practices in the study area based on the average mean score of 2.5 were fire outbreak with severity
index of 3.10, non-availability of seeds/seedlings (2.81), time consuming (2.65), Pest/rodents and
diseases (2.64), whereas , land tenure and long gestation period had mean severity index of 2.6%
and 2.59% respectively. Conclusion drawn from the study is that the agroforestry systems was an
alternative agricultural practices adopted by some arable crops farmers to increase their income
and forest products in the study area, while incident of fire out-break should be checked to prevent
loss of crop, land and farmers income.