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Abstract
Sunflower is a crop with high oil and economic values which portends its great potential for enhancing agricultural productivity and poverty alleviation among smallholder farmers. These notwithstanding, optimum benefit of the sunflower value chain have not been adequately harnessed. Conceived with the backdrop of lack of awareness about the commercial, nutritional and medicinal potentials of sunflower among the rural farm families, the study assessed the utilisation of sunflower among smallholder farmers in two southwestern states (Ogun and Ekiti) of Nigeria, and two districts (southeast and Kgatleng) of Botswana in sub-Saharan Africa. A total of two hundred smallholder farmers were randomly chosen from four purposively selected farming communities in southwestern Nigeria and Botswana districts. Results showed that 49 and 84% of the respondents were aware about the sunflower crop in Nigeria and Botswana, respectively, while only 10 and 25% cultivated the crop, respectively. The results further showed that all those (25%) who cultivated the crop in Botswana utilised it as animal feed only, while their Nigerian counterpart utilised it for variety of purposes. While 6 and 7% utilised it as animal feed and manure/fertiliser production, respectively, in Nigeria, 2, 5 and 8%, respectively, used it for cake/snack production, and traditional and ornamental purposes. Yet, another 6% cultivated the sunflower crop for seed oil extraction. The study concluded that, although, higher proportion of smallholder farmers from Botswana knew about and cultivated the sunflower crop, yet, their Nigeria counterpart utilised the crop more. The need for continuous popularization of the production and utilisation of sunflower crop among smallholder farmers was therefore recommended in both Bostwana and Nigeria. Key words: Sunflower utilisation, smallholder farmers, value chain.
Highlights
Smallholder farmers are vital for agriculture and rural economy of every developing nation especially in the sub-Saharan Africa and other parts of Africa continent where they largely rely on rain-fed agriculture
The results indicated that more female were engaged in smallholder farming in Botswana compared to Nigeria, where more male were involved
The results indicated that respondents from Nigeria had higher literacy level than their Botswana counterpart
Summary
Smallholder farmers are vital for agriculture and rural economy of every developing nation especially in the sub-Saharan Africa and other parts of Africa continent where they largely rely on rain-fed agriculture. License 4.0 International License smallholder farmers are generally marginal and submarginal farm households that own or/and cultivate less than 2.0 ha of land and are characterized by a narrow spectrum of education, mass illiteracy with high level of poverty and poor standard of living (Adedoyin et al., 1996; Ekong, 2003). They usually produce crops in mixed intercropping, which often result in persistent and continuous poor yield in agricultural production leading to poor financial return thereby exacerbating their poverty condition (Amujoyegbe et al, 2011). Alien to the tropical and subtropical Africa, it could be suitable for planting in most areas of Nigeria and Botswana, considering its tolerance to drought and great variety of soil (CAADP, 2008; Amujoyegbe et al, 2012)
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