Adoption of Recommended Crop Protection Practices By Sesame Farmers in Benue State, Nigeria

This study was conducted to investigate fanners practices and adoption of improved sesame crop protection practices in Benue state, Nigeria. Using survey research, a pre-tested structured interview schedule was used to elicit informationfrom 120 sesamefanners that were randomly selectedfrom ten villages in two agricultural blocks in the northern zone from a samplingframe of sesamefanners. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data. Low adoption level was observed for all the crop protection practices , namely herbicide use (2.9%), disease control (2.0%) insect control(2.0%) and seed dressing (2.9%). Only 1%of the respondents hadfull package adoption, 5%hadpartial adoption while 94%didnot adopt any of the cropprotectionpractices. The study further revealed a significant relationship between adoption and the following variables: awareness (r=0.21;p<0.05), household size involvedinfarming (r=0.248;p<0.01), andyears offarming experience (r = 0.370; p<0.01). Stepwise regression analysis revealed that years of farming experience was a critical variable in the adoption of crop protection practices by sesame farmers and accountedfor 17% of the determinants of adoption. Based on this study it is recommended that efforts should be geared towards increasing the awareness of all crop protection practices in order to increase their adoption using a multimedia approach. These crop protection practices shouldfocus mainly on integrated approaches with little or no chemical and more ofpractices that are compatible with thefarmerspractices

Adoption of Recommended Crop Protection Practices By Sesame Farmers in Benue State, Nigeria

This study was conducted to investigate fanners practices and adoption of improved sesame crop protection practices in Benue state, Nigeria. Using survey research, a pre-tested structured interview schedule was used to elicit informationfrom 120 sesamefanners that were randomly selectedfrom ten villages in two agricultural blocks in the northern zone from a samplingframe of sesamefanners. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data. Low adoption level was observed for all the crop protection practices , namely herbicide use (2.9%), disease control (2.0%) insect control(2.0%) and seed dressing (2.9%). Only 1%of the respondents hadfull package adoption, 5%hadpartial adoption while 94%didnot adopt any of the cropprotectionpractices. The study further revealed a significant relationship between adoption and the following variables: awareness (r=0.21;p<0.05), household size involvedinfarming (r=0.248;p<0.01), andyears offarming experience (r = 0.370; p<0.01). Stepwise regression analysis revealed that years of farming experience was a critical variable in the adoption of crop protection practices by sesame farmers and accountedfor 17% of the determinants of adoption. Based on this study it is recommended that efforts should be geared towards increasing the awareness of all crop protection practices in order to increase their adoption using a multimedia approach. These crop protection practices shouldfocus mainly on integrated approaches with little or no chemical and more ofpractices that are compatible with thefarmerspractices