Factors Influencing Farm Output and Income among Agroforestry Farmers of the Fringe Communities of Sapoba Forest Reserve, Edo State Nigeria

Abstract

The study was carried out to assess the factors influencing farm outputs and income among agroforestry farmers in the surrounding communities of Sapoba Forest Reserve, Edo State, Nigeria. A two-stage sampling procedure was used to purposively select five  villages and 12 respondents from each village engaged in food crop production under agroforestry system. Sixty (60) farmers were thus selected from the area. Structured questionnaires were administered on the respondents to elicit answers on their  socioeconomic characteristics and food production operations. Descriptive statistics was used to describe the socio-economic  attributes of the respondents while the regression was used to determine the factors influencing farm output of the respondents. The
study revealed that about 63% of the farmers were married while majority (72.16%) of them is male. About 59% of the sampled farmers were between the age brackets 21-50 years. Among the factors that were responsible for the variation in farmers’ output and farm income, only farm size, household size, farming experience, educational qualification and access to credit were significant
at 5%. It was also observed from the study that though farming activities in the study area is at a subsistence level, it can be said to be a profitable activity owing to the huge total gross margin of N57, 972,250 with an average farmer having a margin of N597, 652.06k. It was as well found that among the crops, cassava generated the most revenue to farmers. The study revealed that cassava was the highest revenue-generating crops for the agroforestry farmers. It can therefore be deduced that incorporating tree planting with arable crops helps in increasing crop productivity by improving soil fertility. It is therefore recommended that agroforestry system of farming should be further encouraged among farmers, especially the rural farmers. This will, in the mid and long term, help in conserving the forest and ensure sustainable forest management.

Keywords: Farm output, agroforestry, farm income, fringe communities, farm income, Sapoba