Abstract
In Nigeria the performances of many governments owned irrigation schemes have fallen short of expectation. Management issues and steps required to ensure sustainable growth in irrigated agriculture were not given proper attention. This study therefore examined those factors affecting farmers’ participation in irrigated agriculture at the Lower Niger River Basin Development Authority (LNRBDA) in Kwara State, Nigeria. One hundred and sixty (160) respondents were selected from communities around LNRBDA site at Oke Oyi for this study through a two-stage sampling procedures. Data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics and logistic regression model. The result showed that majority of respondents were farmers within the economic active age and relatively literate. They identified factors affecting farmers’ participation in the scheme to include poor knowledge of irrigation techniques(78.3%), Insufficient water for irrigation during the dry season (80.5%), high cost of labour (75.8%), Lack of access to credit facility (76.6%), poor response to farmers’ needs by the Authority (85.2%), Irregular pumping of water (86.7),. Consequently, the study recommended encouragement of participatory irrigation scheme (PIM) in which farmers would take charge of daily allocation of water while the authority serves as supervisory body and stepping up of extension activities within the surrounding villages. Keywords: Irrigation, Water, Participatory Irrigation Management, LNRBDA
Highlights
In Nigeria, agricultural production is mainly rainfed and farming systems depend largely on the broad ecological zones resulting from disparity in rainfall and the response to this constraint
The study reveals (Table 1) that both male (72%) and female (28%) farmers were participating in the irrigation scheme
It could be deduced that the youth were been attracted into irrigation farming and given the right working conditions more output can come from the scheme through expansion of farm size and adequate supply of inputs
Summary
In Nigeria, agricultural production is mainly rainfed and farming systems depend largely on the broad ecological zones resulting from disparity in rainfall and the response to this constraint. The majority of cropping in Nigeria is rainfed agriculture, there are four major categories of productive use of water in agricultural production in the country. These are: ‘rainfed agriculture’; ‘supplementary irrigation’; ‘irrigated agriculture’ and ‘livestock’. Due to lack of water storage and large spatial and temporal variations in rainfall, there is not enough water for most farmers to produce more than one crop per year. This is attributed to inadequacy of rainfall, variability in the timing of its start and ending or the occurrence of dry spells during dry seasons (FAO, 2000)
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