Agroforestry Practices among Farmers in Igabi Local Government Area of Kaduna State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study examined agroforestry practices among farmers in Igabi Local Government Area of Kaduna State, Nigeria. Data was collected from 100 randomly selected farmers with the use of structured questionnaire. The questionnaire focused on socio-economic characteristics of the farmers, level of awareness and adoption of agroforestry practices, types of agroforestry practices adopted, factors influencing the willingness of farmers to adopt agroforestry practices, common tree species retained in the farm and constraints faced by the farmers in adopting agroforestry-based farming. Data was analysed using frequency, percentage, mean and probit model. The study found that male (78.00%) dominated farming activities in the study area, the majority (96.00%) of the farmers is in the age group of 21-60 years, most of the farmers (87.00%) are educated and the majority (76.00%) of them had more than 5 years farming experience. The study revealed that farmers in the study area were aware and practicing different types of agroforestry system such as retaining of trees on the farm(33.00%), planting of trees along with the retained trees(28.00%),  taungya farming system(28.00%), and alley farming(20.00%). The study revealed that the adoption of agroforestry practices is high (79.00%) in the study areas. Retention of trees on farmland was mostly adopted (31.00%) while shifting cultivation is the least adopted (5.00%) agroforestry practice in the study area. The result of the probit model analysis showed that farm size (1.1122), farming experience (0.0231) and access to credit (0.1103) were the factors that significantly influence farmers’ willingness to adopt agroforestry practices at 10.00% probability level in the study area. The study also revealed that Parkia biglobosa and Vitellaria paradoxa were the most two tree species retained on farmlands by all the respondents (100%) while Eucalyptus camadulensis was the least grown tree species grown or retained by the farmers (12.00%) on their farmland in the study area. However the level of adoption of agroforestry practices in the study area was hampered by constraints such as high capital intensive nature of agroforestry practices (87.00%), poor extension service (80.00%), inadequate capital (77.00%), poor technical know-how of agroforestry practices (45.00%), land tenure system (36.00%) and lack of access to credit (13.00%). The study suggests that to enhance the adoption level of agroforestry practices among farmers in the study area, improved agroforestry extension services should be provided to farmers; workshops, seminars and symposia should be organized for adequate training of farmers to understand the techniques of agroforestry; and farmers should be encouraged to form cooperative societies so that they can have access to credit facility to boost their capital.