Application of Innovative Extension Advisory Services for Management of Problematic Soil (Acidic Soil) and Food Security in Niger State. Nigeria.

Abstract

The paramount means of sustaining crop management is a "healthy" soil. This implies that a healthy soil will produce healthy crop that have optimum vigor and are less susceptible to pests. This necessitated the conduct of this study, which examined the adoption of innovative extension advisory service on management of problematic soil (acidic soil). Multi-stage sampling techniques was used to select 180 project farmers; primary data were elicited from the respondents with interview schedule from June to July 2021. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and factor analysis. The results how that mean age was 44 years and average household size of 14 persons. Majority (97.2%) were married while about 65% had no formal education. The most extension advisory services adopted by maize farmers for management of problematic soil were agric, lime and NPK with the mean value of ( x =4.0), application of agric. lime 3 weeks before planting with the mean value of ( x =3.9) ranked first and second respectively while for soybean spacing 5cm by 75cm ( x =3.9) was mostly adopted. The major problem faced by the respondent in the study area in terms of innovation adoption was low income level of the respondents which was economic factors with the agein value .739 and banditry attacked with agein value of .611 which was cultural factors. The study recommended that OCP Africa should be encouraged by the project coordinators to establish one of their One Stop Shop across the study areas to enhance the utilization of this innovation.