Road condition and accessibility of agricultural produce to markets: The case of farmers in Oke-Ogun Area of Oyo State

Abstract

The study was conducted to examine the effect of road condition on accessibility of agricultural produce to market by the farmers in Oke Ogun area of Oyo State, Nigeria. Three: Orelope, Iwajowa and Kajola of the ten local government areas in Oke Ogun were purposively sampled. Using simple random sampling technique, 428 farmerswere selected across two seasons (dry and raining). With the aid of a pre-tested interview guide, data were collected on respondents’ socioeconomic characteristics, condition of roads in the study area, access to transport and constraints in transporting farm produce to markets. Data were analysed using dsfcritive (frequencies, mean and percentages) and inferential (Chi-Square) statistics.. Results show that 63.6 % of the farmers were male with mean age of 44 years, mean household size of 6 persons, while47.7 % had no formal education. The condition of road was said to be very bad by 73.1% of the respondents in the rainy season which led to lack of access to transportation as perceived by 68.7 and 78.9 % of the respondents in the dry and raining seasons, respectively. A significant relationship existed between the condition of roads and accessibility to transportation (?2= 432.58; P ? 0.05). In view of these, an improvement on the overall road network and conditions in the areas was recommended.