Farmers’ attitude towards cooperative participation in irrigated vegetables production in Gombe State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study analyzed the attitudes of farmers towards participation in irrigated vegetable production in Gombe state. Multi-stage sampling technique was used to select 180 farmers from a total population of 904 irrigated vegetable farmers in the study area. The data collected was analyzed using descriptive statistics. The result on the socio-economic characteristics revealed that 42.2% of the respondents were within the age group of 30-39 years. Majority 88.9% of the respondents were male and 60.5% of them had no formal education. Most 91.7% of the respondents were married and 35% of them had 9-15 family members. About 52.8% of the respondents earned between N 101,000 - N 150,000 as their estimated annual income. Majority 62.2% of the respondents had their farm size between 0.5 -1.4 hectares of land and about 87.2% of the respondents had between 1-9 years of experience in irrigated vegetable production. Majority 66.7% of the respondents belongs to the farmers’ association. The mean scores of the attitudinal statements are; cooperative participation in irrigated vegetables production help work done faster (4.75), leads to effective decision (4.78), serve as a basis for getting governmental aids (4.11), yield higher profit (4.65), leads to food security (4.72), enhances access to extension services (4.52), facilitates adoption of innovation (4.52), leads to capacity building (4.67), increase investment (4.68), enhances access to market (4.48), and lastly it brings about agricultural development (M=4.62). The study recommended that vegetable farmers should be encouraged to join and revive the existing cooperative societies for them to raise enough capital for their production activities. Government should make available farm inputs, irrigation facilities and construction of boreholes and tube wells to the farmers at subsidized rates. Farmers need to be educated on their production activities and increase in extension agent-farmer contact in order to facilitate the adoption of improved vegetable production technology.