Women's participation in sustainable crop farming activities in Ogun State, Nigeria

Abstract

This study examined the level of women's participation in sustainable crop farming activities in Ogun state. Determined various sustainable crop farming activities engaged in by women categorised them on the basis of their level of participation and identified various means of improving their level of participation in crop farming activities. A multi-stage sampling method was used in selecting 150 women farmers from two Agricultural Development Project zones. An interview schedule was designed to obtain data on the respondents' eleven identified sustainable crop-farming activities. Results show that most of the respondents had between 3-10 years of farming experience. Over half of them had an average farm size of 2-3 hectares while over one-third had no formal education. Crop farming activities such as processing, storage and planting had higher mean scores (x = 1.81; x = 1.79; x = 1.64 respectively) while ridging, fertilizer application and stumping had lower mean scores (x = 0.82; x = 0.91; x = 0.95 respectively). A significant relationship however, existed between the level of sustainable crop farming activities and respondents' age (r= 0.72; P = 0.03), educational level (χ²= 0.61, P = 0.04). marital status (χ²= 0.34, P = 0.01) and household size (r= 0.82, P = 0.04). T-test analysis also revealed that, there is no significant difference between the women farmers participation in sustainable crop farming activities in the two different ecological zones of the study area (t = 2.74, P = 0.81). Keywords: crop farming, participation, sustainable, women farmer Moor Journal of Agricultural Research Vol. 5(1) 2004: 67-73