Empowering Small-Scale Farmers through Improved Technology Adoption: A case study of Soybean Farmers in Borno State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study examined factors that influenced the adoption of improved soybean seed as production technology in Borno State, Nigeria. Data for the study were collected from 360 small-scale farmers spread across nine farming communities in three local government areas. Respondents were selected through multi-stage sampling technique while the data were  collected with the aid of structured questionnaire. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics such as frequency count, percentage and rank while correlation coefficient was used to establish relationship between variables. Results of the study showed that 74.99% of the respondents were below 51 years of age; 52.51% attained at least the Junior Secondary School level of education; 32.50% of the respondents had income between N 400,000.00k - N 1,600,000.00k from the sales of soybean during the period under study. This led to the empowerment of the respondents  mainly in catering for their household needs, expanding their agricultural production and purchase of landed property. Socio-economic characteristics such as age (-0.78), level of education (0.68), and farm size (0.62) had significant influence on the adoption of soybean production technology. The main constraints faced by the respondents in the adoption of  improved soybean production technologies included the complex   technicality of agronomic practices and limited access to extension  services. It was therefore recommended that government should put in place definitive policy to encourage young people to venture into  agriculture/farming and small-scale farmers should be given more agricultural extension educational opportunities.