Factor's Influencing Farmers Willingness to Engage in Agro Forestry Practice

Abstract This study examined the factors influencing farmers’ willingness to engage in agroforestry practice in Ekiti State, Nigeria using cross-section data. Multi-stage and random sampling techniques were used to select 180 respondents. The analytical techniques involved descriptive and inferential statistics. It was shown that majority (50.60%) of the respondents were within 26-50 years age bracket while the average age of the farmers was 51 years. Majority of the sampled farmers (92.20%) were male. The greatest percentage of 83.30% of the farmers were married while 15%, 1.10% and 0.60% were single, widow and divorced, respectively. Also, majority (83.30%) of the farmers had formal education, while 16.70% of them never attended school. Out of those that had formal education, 35.60% of them attended primary school, 26.10% attended secondary school or its equivalent, while 21.70% had one form of higher education certificate. The average years of schooling of the farmers was 9 years. The study also shown that majority (66.70%) of the respondents had farming as their primary occupation, while 33.30% had farming as their secondary occupation. Out of 66.70% of them that had farming as their secondary education, 16.10%, 9.40% and 7.20% were civil servants, traders and artisans, respectively. The probit model result indicates that education (years of schooling), farm distance to farmers’ residents, farming status, and land ownership positively influenced farmers’ willingness to plant agroforestry trees in the study area. Information on the agroforestry systems or practices adopted by the farmers showed that majority (46.10%) of the respondents were willing to combine agroforest tree species with cocoa and 80% of those willing to plant agroforestry trees were to practice cocoa agroforest. About 28% of the respondents were willing to combine agroforestry tree species with arable crops and 53.20% of those that were willing to plant agroforestry trees were willing to plant it with arable crops. The mean scores and standard deviations of farmers’ attitude towards agroforestry tree planting and engagement in other agroforestry practices showed that the farmers expressed positive attitude toward 15 statements out of the 16 statements bordering on agroforestry practices. However, only one statement “farmers do not loose their benefits of participating in other agricultural programmes if engaging in agroforestry practice” was perceived by the farmers negatively. In this study, specific issue which elicited most favourable positive attitude from the farmers is “engaging in agroforestry practice is necessary to achieve increased agricultural productivity”. However, the negative statement that farmers disagree with most on their attitude towards engaging in agroforestry practices is “most farmers are not willing to plant agroforestry trees due to lack of fund”. The factor analysis revealed that the constraints faced by farmers in planting agroforestry trees and engaging in other agroforestry practices are techno-information, cost and public policies constraint, technical/institutional support constraint, land, belief and risk taking constraint and agricultural extension/planting materials constraint. As verified through this study, farmers must be properly given needed attention through extension activities on agroforestry practices that can encourage them to engage in agroforestry practice. Promulgations on land use should be farmers’ friendly enough in order to encourage them to plant agroforestry trees and make them have the confidence to reap the benefits of planting trees that may still come to them several years later. Other technical supports such as credit must be given by government agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in other to encourage farmers to engage in agroforestry practices because of the benefits that can be derived from this both by the farmers and the society at large.