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Apr 30, 2022Keywords:
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Agroforestry Practices Common among Youths in Ifo Local Government Area of Ogun State
Abstract
The study investigated the agro-forestry practices common among youths in Ifo Local Government Area of Ogun State. The study aimed specifically at ascertaining the types of agroforestry systems common among the youth and determining the role of youth in such systems in the study area. The study was carried out in five randomly selected villages with the aid of semi-structured questionnaire administered to selected respondents. One hundred and twenty respondents were randomly selected from Ifo Local Government. Data collected were analyzed using descriptive analytical tools. Majority of the respondents (70.2%) were male, most (62.5%) of whom were within ages 21-30 years. Not fewer than 97% of the respondents had formal education. About 15.38% of the respondents were actively involved in home gardens, while alley cropping and Taungya were practiced by only 1.9% and 2.88% respectively. However, the activities of the youth are most prevalent in Crop farming with Livestock (22.12%) not fewer than 86% plant annual crops. The beneficial factors that encouraged youth to participate in agroforestry include; optimum production of food (53.85%) and maintenance of soil fertility (25.0%). Among the unique roles of the youths are: forestry/agricultural extension within the study area (55.77%), artificial tree regeneration (47.12%) and participation in cooperative farming (46.15%). The youths’ level of participation in agroforestry is still very low in the study area but it has a good potential for improvement, particularly Taungya farming which is well suited to their popular choice of crop farming. It is recommended that government policies on agricultural land as well as reserved forest should be improved upon to make adequate farmland available to the interested youths who want to engage in agroforestry in a larger scale. Further studies should also be carried out to investigate the effects of agroforestry practices on yields of annual crops as this will ascertain the sustainability of agroforestry in the study area.
