Assessing the Agroforestry Systems among Farmers and their Access to Incentives in Southwest Nigeria

Abstract

The study aimed at evaluating the agroforestry practices and access to incentives by farmers in Southwest Nigeria. The study adopted multistage sampling techniques to sample 465 smallholder arable farmers from Oyo, Ogun, and Osun States respectively. Moreover, primary data were collected using structured questionnaires and analysed using descriptive statistics and chi-square (χ²) test. The parameters for the study were agroforestry practices and farmers' access to incentives. The results of the study showed that majority of respondents (61.9%) were mostly men. Moreover, majority of the respondents (87.7%) were mostly engaged in farming activities on smallholder farms with a mean farm size of 7.85 ha. Additionally, majority of respondents (81.9%) were mostly practicing cultivation of multipurpose trees on cropland, taungya (71.0%), border tree planting (63.7%), alley cropping (63.2%), improved tree fallow (62.8%) and agrisilviculture (58.1%) and live fence (52.9%) were mostly used agroforestry practices. Furthermore, the results of the study revealed that there existed a significant association between agroforestry practices and farmers' access to incentives (p < 0.01). Finally, the study found that availability of incentives could positively influence adoption and utilization of diverse agroforestry practices.