Land Degradation and Farm Management Practices Among Farmers in the Northern Agricultural Zone of Cross River State

The study was carried out to investigate land degradation and farm
management practices among farmers in the Northern Agricultural Zone of
Cross River State, Nigeria. A survey research design was adopted for the
study. A total of 32 extension agents and 224 registered farmers was
randomly sampled, and stratified along local government areas. A structured
questionnaire was used for data collection. The reliability coefficient of the
instrument was 0. 92 using correlation analysis while three experts carried out
face validation of the instrument Five research questions and five
corresponding hypotheses tested at 0. 05 level of significance guided the
study. Means and standard deviation were employed to answer the research
questions, while t-test statistics was used to test the hypotheses. It was fond
that, farmers showed high level of awareness of the effects of the various
forms of land degradation but showed low concern on conservation issues.
Certain activities of farmers have contributed to land degradation to a very
high extent; land degradation has very seriously affected agricultural
production; the continuous adoption of unsustainable farm management I I
practices by farmers in the study area is due largely to socio-economic factors
like poverty, population pressure, high market value of land and low and
unstable price for agricultural produce. It was recommended that farmers
should be encouraged to adopt more sustainable forms of land use including
diversified farming system with appropriate inclusion of livestock, multipurpose
trees, shrubs, land tenure systems which are incompatible with the
introduction of improved agriculture. Land management need to be reviewed
and extension agents' role must changed form implementer to facilitator for effective participation of laqd usen in all stages of aglicultural production.