EFFECTS OF RECOMMENDED COCOYAM PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGIES ON OUTPUT OF FARMERS IN ENUGU STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

Abstract The study assessed the effects of adoption of recommended cocoyam production technologies on the output of farmers in Enugu State, Nigeria. Five-stage sampling procedure was used to select 245 cocoyam farmers. Structured questionnaire was used to collect primary data which was analyzed using descriptive statistics and multiple regression analysis. The results obtained revealed that mean age of the farmers was 56 years and majority (84.1%) of them had formal education. More so, only 20.4% of the farmers had access to credit facilities while 48.6% had contact with extension agents. Most of the farmers adopted all the recommended cocoyam technologies such as fertilizer application (NPK 15:15:15) after planting (99.6%), timely planting between May-June (99.2%), planting method using internodes at 1-2cm thickness (98.8%) and harvesting by digging around cocoyam plant at about 30cm (98.8%).. Regression estimate for the effects of adoption of recommended cocoyam technologies on output of farmers revealed that almost all the technologies had positive and significant effects at varying levels of probability with the output, except fertilizer which was negative but significant (P< 0.01)probability level. Thus, it was concluded that the recommended cocoyam technologies had significant effects on the output of the farmers. The study recommends that more sensitization campaign should be carryout by the research institutions in order to scale-up the adoption of recommended cocoyam technologies in the region and beyond.