ANALYSIS OF ORGANIC VEGETABLE FARMING IN NIGER STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

The study analyzed organic vegetable farming in Niger State. Data used for the study were obtained using questionnaire and structured interview schedule administered to 119 randomly selected vegetable farmers. Descriptive statistics and inferential statistics were used for the analysis. Passion regression model was used to determine the factors affecting adoption of organic fertilizer in vegetable farming. The study revealed that 94.1% of the respondents were between 21 – 40 years with the mean age of 37 years, largely proportion of the respondents (99.2%) were male and 80% were married. Majority (82.5%) of the respondents had formal education with the mean of 8 years, mean household size was 7 person and mean farm size of 2.0875 hectares. Among the factors that significantly affect the adoption of organic fertilizer were gender, age, household size, education, income, farm size and farmers perception. Majority of the respondents had positive attitude towards the use of organic fertilizer manure and strongly agreed that vegetable farming is more profitable using organic fertilizer. Vegetable production is cheaper using organic fertilizer and using organic fertilizer helps improves the environment. The most important perceived severed constraints were: transportation of organic fertilizer is expensive, organic manure are scarce and have offensive odour. It is recommended that a frame work of activities be develop that are all encompassing to promote the use of organic fertilizer, not only for vegetable production but for other crops and efforts should be geared towards addressing most importantly marketing issues to motivate the producers to produce more by the government and all stalk holders charged with the responsibility of promoting organic agriculture.