Socio-economic Assessment of Organic Farming Practices for Soil Management among Vegetable Farmers in Peri-urban Areas of Oyo State, Nigeria
Agboola A. F. and I.A. Adekunle
Department of Agricultural Extension and Rural Development,
Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife. Nigeria
Abstract
Study was carried out to assess organic farming practices of vegetable farmers in Oyo State with a view to identifying those that are environmental friendly. The study specifically identified the various organic farming practices in the study area that are soil protective and also examined the benefits derivable from such practices and challenges associated with their use. Multistage sampling procedure was used to select 240 vegetable growers in 16 selected peri-urban areas of the State. The result revealed that the mean age of the farmer is 46.7 years with annual income of N380,680.00 on vegetable production. The organic farming practices identified were zero tillage, use of compost, animal manure, mulching, hand weeding, use of natural pesticides, use of commercial organic fertilizers, fallowing and crop rotation. It was also revealed that the benefit derivable from organic farming practices included soil protection, user friendliness and safety, high profit, local availability of resources, and extensive use of indigenous knowledge, while the major constraints include labour intensive, time consuming, bulkiness, irritating odour and inadequate training. Result of inferential analysis also revealed that there exist positive significant correlation between variables like availability of resources (r=0.173), openness (r=0.197), and user friendliness (r=0.204) and soil management ability of organic farming practices identified. In conclusion, organic farming practices, if well applied, will help a lot in the country’s quest for agricultural soil and water conservation.