Food Legume Crops in Nigeria: Potentials for Soil Fertility and Food Security

Type Journal Article - Journal of Agricultural Science and Technology
Title Food Legume Crops in Nigeria: Potentials for Soil Fertility and Food Security
Author(s)
Volume 1
Publication (Day/Month/Year) 2011
Page numbers 354-367
URL http://www.davidpublishing.com/davidpublishing/Upfile/8/22/2011/2011082207840382.pdf
Abstract
The study was undertaken to assess the inorganic fertilizer production and consumption, export and import trends in
Nigeria, assess the effect of food legume technology on farmers’output, income, household inventories and inorganic fertilizer usage.
Multi-stage sampling technique procedure was adopted in obtaining 300 respondents. Primary and secondary data were used. Simple
descriptive statistics, t-test and correlation were used to analyse the data. Both the trend analysis result and test of mean differences
showed a wide gap. The result revealed a significant increase in the yields of maize, millet, cocoyam, sweet potato, okro, tomato and
overall aggregate crop yield of farmers after the adoption of the food legume technology (t = 2.78, 2.23, 3.70, 3.30, 2.20, 3.5 and
2.297; P = 0.05), hence improves food security. Similarly, the result revealed significant positive change in terms of
farmers’ownership of house, increase in the number of rooms, improvement in water source, possession of radio, television/tape
recorders and cell phone. Major constraints to production as revealed by the study include pests and diseases, low soil fertility,
inadequate finance, storage problem and poor market for products. The study recommends adequate and regular supply of food
legume production inputs to farmers and intensive control of pests and diseases.

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