Adoption of pesticides safety practices among cucumber farmers in Giwa Local Government Area of Kaduna State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study assessed pesticides safety practices adopted by cucumber farmers in Giwa Local Government Area of Kaduna state, Nigeria. The specific objectives were description of the socio-economic characteristics of the cucumber farmers, identification of safety practices adopted by the cucumber farmers and determination of factors that influence the adoption of safe pesticide practices. Multistage sampling procedure was used to select 144 cucumber farmers. Descriptive statistics such as frequency, percentage and mean were used to analyze socio-economic characteristics of the cucumber farmers. The use of safe pesticides practices was analyzed by adoption index while multiple regression analysis was used to establish the relationships between socio-economics characteristics of the cucumber farmers and adoption of safe pesticides practices. Most (88%) of the cucumber farmers had low level of education, while 52.9% of them had access to extension services. About 40.2% of them were trained but only 26% of the training content was on pesticides safety. The mean age, household size, household labour and farm size of the farmers were 32.24 years, 10 persons, 3 persons and 0.91ha, respectively. Majority (70.6%) of the cucumber farmers used inorganic pesticide. Result of regression analysis showed that years of inorganic pesticide usage (r=0.009), frequency of pesticides spray (0.004), education (0.138) and extension services (r=1.908) were significant and positive variables that influenced adoption of safe pesticides practices. Thus, the study recommended that routine training and educational programs focusing on pesticides safety practices should be conducted by the extension agents for the farmers in local languages.