Factors Influencing Sustainable Agricultural Practices among Smallholder Farmers in Ogun State of Nigeria

Abstract

The importance of adopting Sustainable Agricultural Practices (SAPs) approach to improve food production cannot be overemphasized in policy development and research agenda of many countries in sub-Saharan Africa. This study investigates how socio-demographic factors influence farm-level decision process associated with the adoption of sustainable agricultural practices among smallholder farmers in Ogun State. A multi-stage sampling technique was used to select 196 farmers. Primary data were collected with the aid of structured questionnaires. The data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Likert scale rating and multivariate probit model. The results showed that majority of the farmers were male with mean age of 35 years cultivating an average farm size of 5.8 hectares. The use of improved variety was adopted by 95.41% and this was rank first among the practices adopted by the farmers. Agroforestry was rank second and adopted by 85.71% of the respondents. The extent of adoption by the respondents showed that 94.39 and 72.45 were practicing the use of improved variety and agroforestry regularly. The factors influencing adoption of sustainable practices were age, education, farm size, farming experience and membership of social organization. The result further revealed that young farmers are more likely to adopt sustainable agricultural practices as option to increase productivity and reduce vulnerability of environment to ecological problems. This suggests that campaign for adoption of sustainable agricultural practices should target young farmers. However, this is not to discriminate older farmers in the sustainable agriculture policy agenda. The study established that there are complementary and substitute effects between the sustainable agricultural practices. This showed that policy changes that affect adoption of a given practice can have spillover effect on the other. Hence, extension services and promotion agenda should always emphasize the effects between different practices to enhance farmers’ choice.