Socio-economic Factors Influencing Adoption Of Recommended Cotton Production Practices By Farmers In Zamfara State Nigeria

The bottle neck facing the production of cotton in Zamfara State is the use of traditionalmethod of growing cotton by farmers which leads to poor yield and income from cottonproduction. Despite the introduction of RCPPs to farmers in Tsafe, Gusau and Bungudulocal government areas (LGAs) of Zamfara State, farmers are far from achievingpotential yield of 3.0- 3.5 t/ha against 1.3t/ha under farmers’ practices. This study wascarried out to determine the socio-economic factors influencing the adoption ofrecommended cotton production practices by farmers in Zamfara State, Nigeria. Thespecific objectives were to: describe socio-economic characteristics and institutionalfactors of cotton farmers, determine the rate of adoption of RCPPs by farmers, the yieldperformers of cotton and income of farmers under RCPPs, socio - economic factorsinfluencing adoption of RCPPs and identify the constraints to adoption of RCPPs. Atwo stage sampling procedure was used, three LGAs were purposively selected based onintensity of cotton production and coverage by RCPPs. Two communities were selectedfrom each of the three selected LGAs. A sample size of 144 cotton farmers was selectedfor data analysis. Frequency, percentage, mean and multiple regression were used toanalyse the data. The results show that the respondents had a mean age of 40 years.About 40 percent of the respondents had 38 – 48 numbers of people in their household.Also, (45%) of the respondents had koranic education, while the respondents had amean of 11 years in cotton farming. Majority (65%) of the respondents had contact withextension agents but not too frequently. The results also show that the mean credit needof the respondents was N69, 208 but were only able to receive N18, 451 averagely. Theresults show that in 2001-2002, the use of good seed - bed preparation had the highest(30%) rate of adoption. Similarly, recommended spacing, use of SAMCOT-9, thinning,and seed treatment had 28%, 25 %, 23% and 21% rate of adoption, respectively. Therate of adoption of RCPPs increases from 2001/2002 to 2009/2010 except in 2005/2006where the rate of adoption dropped as result of fall in price of cotton in. The findings,reveal that majority (66%) of the respondents reported a mean yield of 2300kg/ha.About 43% of the respondents got N120, 000/ha from sale of cotton. The results ofmultiple regression reveal that labour was negatively significant, while educationallevel, farming experience, extension contact, membership of social organization andaffordability were positively significant at 5 percent level of probability with an R2value of 0.58. It was discovered from this study that low level of education, inadequateand high cost of labour, insufficient fund, storage and marketing problem, were themajor constraints faced by the cotton farmers. It is recommended that adult educationand pre-season training should be organized for cotton farmers; farmers should formvarious co-operative groups for land, input, credit, labour and marketing of cotton inorder to enhance the adoption of RCPPs and improved cotton productivity in the studyarea.

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