ASSESSMENT OF CASSAVA FARMERS FACTORS OF FARMLAND MANAGEMENT SUSTAINABILITY IN OYO STATE NIGERIA

Abstract

Various factors affect crop farmers’ production capability in one way or the other which enhance or reduce farmers’ potentials optimum levels of production sustainability. The study examined smallholder cassava farmers’ farm specific and factors of farmland management sustainability in Oyo State Nigeria. Multistage sampling was used to collect primary data from three hundred and thirty farmers through well-structured questionnaire; data was analyzed using descriptive and tobit regression analysis. The result shows that 52.8% of the farmers sources of credit was through cooperative society, 35.5% source their farmland through inheritance, mean years of farming experience was 13 years, 66.1% used manual means of cultivation, 17.9% used mechanized irrigation, 30.6% harvested between 21-30 of cassava per hectare and 69.7% earned income between ₦101,000 and ₦500,000. The tobit regression revealed that the coefficient of farmers years of farming experience and farm size are positive and significant (p<0.05), farmers mean of cultivation was negatively signed and significant (p<0.05), organic manure application, fertilizer and pesticide application, organic matter presence in the soil, residue cover and farmers profit per hectare are significant (p<0.01) to farmland management sustainability. The sigma pseudo R² was 0.7973, with the Chi² being significant (p<0.01) which shows that there is a possibility of increasing farmers sustainable farmland management with an increase in application of these variable indices. It was therefore concluded that farmer’s combination of these variables and the sustainability effects will increase farmer’s decision in the continuous usage of some certain farmland management practices in the study.