EVALUATION OF RATE OF CHEMICAL WEED CONTROL TECHNOLOGY ADOPTION IN NIGER STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

A survey was carried out during the 2001 rainy reason by administering structured questionnaires to 360 farmers in nine towns/villages (40 questionnaires per town/village) from three Local Government Areas (LGA) randomly identified from each of the three agricultural zones of Niger State.  The questionnaires were administered and interpreted by Extension Agents, and the data sorted out according to frequency of response which was expressed in percentage for making inferences.  Results indicated that farmers in the three agricultural zones were mostly aged between 31-50 years, married (91%), illiterate (51.1%) and full time workers.  Most of them (>87%) were aware of and used hervicides which were mainly bought in the open market to control weeds in their farms (42.8%).  The majority of the farmers used CP 15 knapsack sprayer (70.2%) which were personally owned (>55%) in all the three zones.  It was observed that the majority of the farmers did not wear protective clothing (53%) and they converted empty herbicide containers for household use (48.6%).  Most herbicide accidents occurred dut to skin contact (67.3%).  It was found that the majority (>84%) of the farmers washed the equipment and themselves after spraying and they (>94%) perceived that herbicide control method was more effective, labor saving (74.1%) and cheaper (66.6%) than hoe weeding.