Urban Farmers’ Adoption of Improved Dry Season Vegetable Production Technologies in in Owerri Municipal Council of Imo State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study was carried out to examine the constraints and strategies for improving agricultural intervention programmes in Nigeria with particular reference to the National Fadama Development Project, phase two in Kogi state. A set of interview schedule and questionnaire were used for data collection. Descriptive statistics like frequency, percentage and mean score were used to present the data. Factor analysis with principal component model on varimax rotation was used to determine major constraints while t-test was used to analyse the differences in perception of two sets of respondents to the constraints of the programme. Poverty was the major constraint perceived by farmers (mean = 3.89), while facilitators perceived both high cost of farm inputs and lack of credit facilities as the most serious constraint (mean = 3.38 each). Both farmers and facilitators shared similar opinion on twenty identified constraints and have significant differences in their perception of seven identified problems (p< 0.05). The result however, showed that several factors constrained the effectiveness of the project. The factors were grouped using factor analysis into technical problems, institutional problems and economic problems. For the farmers, the major strategy suggested was supply of farm machineries (65.2%), while facilitators suggested supply of subsidies and training opportunities for farmers (87.5%). It was recommended that, employment of project staff should be specific to only those with good agricultural background especially in crop science and agricultural extension to allow for effective relationship between the project and farmers.