Socio-cultural factors Hindering Adoption of Technologies by Women-In-Agriculture Farmers in Enugu State, Nigeria.

Abstract

The study was carried out to ascertain the socio-cultural factors hindering adoption of technologies by Women-In-Agriculture (WIA) farmers in Enugu State, Nigeria. A multi-stage random sampling technique was used to select two hundred and forty (240) WIA farmers that served as the respondents. WIA farmers are the women groups that are registered with the ENADEP and visited by the WIA block extension agents. Structured questionnaire as well as focus Group Discussion were used to elicit information from the respondents and the information collected were analysed using percentages, mean, likert scale and factor analysis. The major findings show that the WIA farmers were exposed to crop production, animal production, farm product processing and non-farm technologies in the study area. The results also show that the general adoption levels of these technologies were low. Reasons sought for such low adoption levels show that type of technologies (0s = 3.29) gender-biased land issues (0s= 3.28), institutional problems (finance and marketing) (0s = 3.78 & 3.17) among other problems constituted towards the low adoption level. It was therefore recommended that the programme needs to be reorganised to include other low input crops, such as cocoyam and potato; more women groups should be formed and more female extension agents should be trained and employed for more effective coverage.

Keywords: Adoption, Factors, Farmers, Hindering, Socio-cultural, Technologies & WIA.

International Journal of Agriculture and Development Vol. 9 2007: pp. 48-54