Children Involvement in Rice Cultivation: Assessment of Their Role and Impact in Sokoto State, Nigeria

Ango Adamu Kamba,Muhammad Ahmad,Mamman Muntaka,Ndubueze Precious

doi:10.11648/j.ijaas.20210702.13

Abstract

This study assessed the role of children in rice cultivation in Sokoto state. Two Local Government areas were purposely selected from the two Agricultural Development Programme zones of the state. Data were obtained through the administration of structured questionnaire and analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Findings of the study revealed that majority (74.99%) of the children actively participated in rice cultivation and were between the ages of 9-16 years with mean age of about 12 year and 8 months, 55% of them were males with majority enrolled in to Qur’anic schools only. Majority (84.16%) of the children spent 4-7 hours working per day with an average of 4.55days working per week with a mean income of N18,175/year. The common rice cultivation activities engaged by the children included transplanting, weeding, fertilizer application, birds scaring, harvesting and processing. All the children were motivated in to rice production business by provision of incentives (food, clothing and money). The study concludes that majority of the children were under age and engaged in to rice cultivation purposely for some life necessities and recommends that government should come up with better incentives that could attract the attention of the children towards pursuance of education and acquirance of other technical skills.

Highlights

Background of the StudyAgriculture, since time immemorial has been found to sustain human beings in their lively dealings
This findings is in agreement with a study which reported that children with years ranging from 3, 4, 9, 13 and 14 years are engaged in cocoa, coffee, corn, tea, tobacco and rice production and some of them acting as scarecrows in the rice fields [18]
Results in the Table further reported that majority (71.7%) of the children were of the agreement that engaging them in rice cultivation deprives them of their education pursuance and 15.9% of the children disagreed that engaging them in rice cultivation deprive them of their struggle to acquire educational statuses

Summary

Introduction

Background of the StudyAgriculture, since time immemorial has been found to sustain human beings in their lively dealings. Ever since the first man learnt to till the soil and raise animals, agriculture has consistently being the source of food, feed and shelter for himself and animals in addition to provision of clothing, employment and raw materials for industries [1]. Agriculture is an important sector of Nigeria’s economy in spite of the decline it has incurred due to the discovery of oil in the 1970s and the country is endowed with land and water resources capable of supporting any sort of agricultural practice [2]. The availability of the natural resources in Nigeria was the reason why majority of its inhabitants opted for agricultural practices as the main source of livelihood and employer of more than 60% of the populace. Many assorted crop varieties and animals are raised in Nigeria and rice was considered as one of the crops produced and is being considered as the staple food for majority of the citizenry

Methods

Results

Conclusion