Effect of Knowledge of Hand Washing, Sources of Water and Environmental Hygiene of Farming Households on Sustainable Agriculture in North-Central Nigeria.

Abstract

The study assess the knowledge of hand washing, sources of water and environmental hygiene practices of farming households Norlh-Cemral Nigeria. multi-stage simple random sampling technique was used to select 256 responses were analyzed using frequency counts and mean score. The result of the study shows that 38% of the respondents are in the age range of 31 - 40 years with a mean of 36. 7 years, they had low level of education and the mean number of number of visits of health service workers 10 farming households is 3 times/per annum. The results revealed that majority (73,80%) of the respondents are aware of the need 10 always wash hands after using the toile/ but the knowledge on the use of soap to wash hand before eating ( 36.30%), preparing food cooking (20.30%), changing baby's wear ( 24.20%), after defecating (19.10%) and before feeding children (18.40%) is loll' in the study area. Majority of the respondents go their water for household purposes from unprotected sources such as dug well (57%) and bore holes (52%) and the majority (8-1%) treat their wafer by allowing it to stand and seale before drinking or before using it for other household purposes which is inadequate and may endanger the farming households /0 the vulnerability of food and water borne diseases. The use of bush and pit latrine are the major means of defecation in the households and dumping of household waste in a nearby bush is the system of waste disposal always adopted by majority (63.70%) of the households. Health extension workers and the local authorities should establish joint participatory committees to sensitize, motivate and organize food safety promo/ion programmes on the need to enforce some crucial food safety practices especially hand washing with soap /ash. on the danger of open defecation and poor system of waste disposal,