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SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURAL PRACTICES AND ARABLE FARMERS PRODUCTIVITY IN LAGOS STATE, NIGERIA
ABSTRACT
Nigeria is one of the countries that may not meet up with the millennium development goals (MDGs) by 2015 especially the eradication of hunger and poverty. Beyond 2015, efforts towards food production sufficiency and hunger reduction may yield little or no efforts with land degradation and different unsustainable agricultural practices being used by farmers. Consequently, the paper evaluates the state of agricultural practices among arable farmers and assesses how sustainable is their use of land resource in the light of global practices that support sustainable agricultural production. The use of sustainable agricultural practices such as composting, mulching, crop rotations, inter-cropping, agro-forestry, biological pest control measures, green manures, erosion prevention and water harvesting were examined through administration of questionnaire and interview among the farming community in Ikorodu area of Lagos, Nigeria. Seventy farmers were selected by systematic random sampling but sixty responses were successful for analysis. The data were analysed using descriptive statistics, t-test and probit regression. The results showed that majority of the farmers have been using more than five of the nine sustainable practices. 48.33% of the farmers depend on the use of inorganic fertilizers. The farmers have been cropping their farmlands for an average of seven years. There is no significant difference between the outputs of the farmers that apply more than five and those that apply less than five of the sustainable arable farming practices. The probability of a farmer having higher yield increases with the use of sustainable agricultural practices. The paper concludes that awareness creation through the extension services of the State’s Ministry of Agriculture and other stakeholders will promote the farmers’ use of sustainable agricultural practices. The government should encourage educated individuals into farming to encourage the use of sustainable agricultural practices which reduce land degradation tendencies and encourage green society.
Keywords: Sustainable Agricultural Practices, Land, Arable Crops, Farmers Productivity.