ANALYSIS OF FARMER’S KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDE AND PRACTICES TOWARDS THE ADOPTION OF GINGER PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGIES IN SOUTHERN KADUNA, KADUNA STATE NIGERIA

Abstract

The study examined farmer’s knowledge, attitude and practices towards the adoption of ginger production technologies in southern Kaduna, Kaduna State Nigeria. Multistage sampling technique was employed in selecting 215 respondents from the study area. Data were obtained through the administration of structured questionnaire to the respondents, both descriptive and inferential statistics were used in analyzing data. The result revealed that most of the respondents were within their active ages of production as indicated by the mean age of 39 years. Majority (76.6%, 71.1% and 70.2%) of the respondents were male, married and had attended tertiary levels of education with a mean household size of 6 persons, 16 years of farming experience, 2.4ha of farm size and income of ₦784,839.45. In addition, the findings showed that the major technologies adopted in ginger production were combination of organic and inorganic fertilizer (91.7%), harvesting (91.7%), fertilizer application (90.8%) and weeding (90.8%) which were ranked 1^st and 3^rd, respectively. The result further shows that respondents had a full knowledge and agreed on ginger production technologies as indicated by mean scores above the mean threshold values of 2.0 and 3.0, respectively. The findings also showed that respondents attitudes toward ginger production were; it requires capital outlay (=4.3), it is easy to cultivate (=4.0), it has good medicinal value (=4.2), result to high yield (=4.1) and had high market value (=4.3) as indicated by the mean scores above the threshold value of 3.0. Based on the finding of the study it is concluded that respondents has were aware and had good knowledge of improved practices as well as positive attitudes to facilitate the adoption of ginger production technologies. It is recommended that ginger producers should form and participate actively in cooperatives so as to increase their accessibility to production inputs, government should subsidized cost of inputs for ginger producers.