Economic Study of Farmland Erosion Control Practices in Enugu State, Nigeria

ABSTRACT An economic analysis of farmland erosion control practices was conducted in Enugu State, southeastern Nigeria. The study aimed at identifying and describing the erosion control practices applied by the farmers, determining the net-benefit of erosion control practices, determining the socio-economic factors affecting the farmers’ use of a particular erosion control practice and identifying from the farmers perspective the possible causes and extent of cause of erosion on the farmland as well as making recommendations based on the findings. An interview schedule and structured questionnaire were used to elicit primary data from 168 farmers, randomly selected from the three agricultural zones of the state. Analysis of the data were done using multinomial logit model, partial budget analysis Duncan’s Multiple range test and descriptive statistics. Four erosion control practices were used by the farmers: Multiple cropping, as indicated by 41% of the respondents, Construction of Bonds, 20%, Ridging across the slope, 18% and Cover cropping, as indicated by 21% of the respondents. The Partial budget analysis showed the net-benefits of each of these erosion control practice as N393, 953.88k for Multiple cropping, N26, 115.30k for Construction of Bonds, N33, 741.66k for Ridging Across the slope and N891.10k for Cover cropping. 7.36 (Multiple cropping), 1.59 (Construction of bonds), 1.14 (Ridging across the slope) and 1.10 (Cover cropping) were shown as the profitability index for the erosion control practices. Duncan’s comparison test showed that there was statistically significant difference in the means of net-benefits of erosion control practices at 5%. The Multinomial logit Regression analysis indicated a seemingly low explanatory powers of the factor as reflected by Pseudo- R2 of 0.2449, but this is not uncommon in cross sectional analysis. The overall goodness of fit as reflected by prob>Chi2 was however good (