Factors Affecting the Adoption of Improved Planting Materials by Cassava Farmers in Ekiti State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study was carried out to examine the factors affecting the adoption of improved planting materials by cassava farmers in Ekiti State, Nigeria. One hundred and eighty cassava farmers were selected through random sampling procedure. Data were collected from them using a set of well-structured questionnaire. Data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics and econometric method of data analysis, using binary logistic regression model to analyze the probability of adoption of improved cassava planting materials. The study revealed that 59.1% of the respondents were above 50 years old while majority (85.1%) were male, 66.9% were married. The result reported further 51.9% had formal education while 48.1% did not attend any formal school. Majority of the sampled farmers (66.3%) took farming as major occupation as 75.7% of the farmers had less than one hectare as their farm size. In having access to extension service, 50.8% of the respondents claimed to have been visited while 49.2% did not. Their sources of awareness indicate that majority (37.6%), got aware of innovation on radio, closely followed by 28.2% from extension agents and 26.4% from other farmers who are either colleagues or farm neighbour. The study of adoption level indicates that majority (55.8%) had finally adopted, 19.3% are on trial stage, 7.2% are still evaluating, 13.8% had shown interest in knowing more about improved varieties while only 3.9% said truly they were aware that improved cassava cultivars was available in town. The result of logit regression (R2) of 0.65 is high meaning that about 65% of adoption of improved cassava planting material is explained by the explanatory variables. The result further reported that output and farming experience were statistically significant at 1% while farm size and access to extension services were statistically significant at 5%. Also, age, level of education and access to credit were statistically significant at 10%. It implies that the statistically significant variables greatly influenced the adoption of improved cassava planting materials in the study area. Cassava production is however fraught with many problems with insufficient labour being the highest (34.2%) followed by pest and diseases 23.8%, others are high cost of labour 16.6%, lack of credit 10.0%, low extension contacts 8.8% marketing problem 5.0% and others.