PAPER TITLE :EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF EROSION EFFECTS ON ARABLE CROP FARMERS' PRODUCTIVITY IN EGBEDA LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF OYO STATE.

APPLIED TROPICAL AGRICULTURE | VOLUME 24 NUMBER 2 2019

Paper Details

  • Author(s) : Ogunwande, I. O.
  • Abstract:

The study analyzed erosion effects on arable crop farmers' productivity in Egbeda Local Government Area of Oyo State. Erosion has become prevalent in the area to the extent that their effect on farmland is in terms of nutrients loss which eventually results in low output. Cross sectional data were collected through the use of structured questionnaire and interview guide in accessing and interviewing 150 arable crop farmers in ten spatially located communities. Analytical tools employed were Descriptive Statistics and Stochastic Frontier Production Function (SFPF). Results for the categories of farmers with erosion, without erosion and pooled data showed that farmers were of the average age of 48 years, males were about 70% and married farmers were the majority, while the erosion control method popularly adopted was ridging across the slope. The efficiency scores were 0.86 (farmers having farms without erosion effect), 0.72(farmers having farms with erosion effect) and 0.68 (the pooled data). Return to scale (RTS) showed that farmers without erosion and those with erosion on their farms were 0.83 and 0.62 respectively while the pooled data result was 0.68 indicating that all farmers operated at the stage II of the production surface which is rational. Efficiency distributions for arable crop farmers for the three categories  clustered within 0.61-0.90(farmers without erosion), 0.41-0.90(farmers with erosion) while the pooled data showed that technical efficiency spread across the range uniformly. Hypothesis test showed that there was a significant difference between the technical efficiency of farmers without and with erosion experience on the farm (t=12.347, P<0.01). It was concluded that farmers without erosion on their farms were more technically efficient than their counterpart. Based on the result obtained, it was recommended that farmers should be given more training on erosion control methods in order to ensure availability of nutrients for crops on the farmland,  in turn; lesser cost would be incurred on nutrient replenishment and land reclamation.