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Farmers Adoption Of Improved Technology In Cassava Production And Processing
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Geographic component; peri-urban areas are in close proximity to urban areas.
Temporal
component; this describes peri-urban areas as relatively temporary due
mainly to the growth of urban areas and advancements in transportation
systems.
Another description of peri-urban is given by the
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD, 1979): The
impacts of economic growth and physical expansion of the urban area are
not confined within urban boundaries; they reach into much wider areas
surrounding urban centres, creating so-called "rurban areas", "urban
fringe areas", or "peri-urban areas". While the peri-urban area retains
the characteristics of the rural area, these are subject to major
modifications: changes take place with respect to physical
configuration, economic activities, social relationships and so forth.
Cassava
(Manihot esculenta Crantz) is a perennial woody shrub which grows to a
height of about 1-3m and is cultivated mainly for its roots (and to a
lesser extent its leaves. Cassava roots are utilized for human
consumption, as a constituent of animal feed, in the production of
industrial starch and as a source of bio-fuel. Cassava excels under
suboptimal conditions such as low soil fertility and drought, offering
the possibility of using marginal land to increase total agricultural
production (Cock, 1982). Cassava has a high rate of converting available
sunlight to carbohydrates and according to Burrell (2003) contributing
to the importance of cassava in most tropical countries. It grows and is
cultivated in the tropical and subtropical areas of the world as a food
and cash crop. Africa produced about 54% of the cassava in the world
with Nigerian cassava production being the largest in the world with
approximately 34 million tonnes in 2001; a third more than production in
Brazil and almost double the production of Indonesia and Thailand (FAO,
2004).
1.2Statement of the Problem
Nigeria is the largest
producer of cassava in the world with 34 million tonnes of cassava
produced in 2001 and an average yield of 10.6 tonnes per hectare in 1999
(FAO, 2004). In spite of this, Nigeria’s potential for cassava
production has not been reached. Former president Gen Olusegun
Obasanjo’s cassava production initiative envisaged that US$5 billion a
year would be attained from cassava production in 2007, it was
determined that 150 million tonnes of cassava would be needed by the end
of 2006 to achieve the Presidential Cassava Initiative (PCI
Subcommittee, 2002) and as at 2006 about 45 million tonnes of cassava
was produced (United States Agency for International Development-USAID,
2008). This clearly shows that there is a large gap between current
production levels and this target.
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ABSRACT - [ Total Page(s): 1 ]This study was aimed at determining farmer’s adoption of improved technology in cassava production and processing in peri-urban areas of Edo state using Ikpoba Okha and Ovia North East local government areas as case studies. Purposive sampling was used to select 6 wards from which simple random sampling was used to select each of 148 cassava farmers from the 6 wards. The data was analysed using frequency counts, percentages and Pearson’s correlation coefficient was used to test the ... Continue reading---
