Gender assessment of vegetable farmers' utilisation of soil and water conservation technologies in MicroVeg project Sites, Southwest Nigeria

The study assessed the utilisation of soil and water conservation (SWC) technologies by vegetable farmers in MicroVeg project sites on a gender basis. Specifically, it identified the popular SWC technologies used and assessed the level of utilisation of the SWC technologies among the male and female vegetable farmers. A multi-stage sampling procedure was used for the sample selection. At stage one, purposive sampling, proportionate sampling at stage two and snowball sampling at the last stage. Data collected were described using descriptive statistics such as mean, standard deviation, frequency, percentages and analysed using correlation and t-test. The findings revealed that the mean age of the male farmers was 35.28 +/- 8.2 years while that of the female farmers was 40.94 +/- 10.34 years. Cover cropping, fertilizer, dug-out well and surface irrigation was the dominant SWC technologies used by both male and female farmers. Results of correlation analysis showed that there was a positive and significant relationship between male vegetable farmers' years of farming experience (r=0.284), size of vegetable farm (r=0.271), and contact with extension agents (r=-0.078) and the utilisation of SWC technologies at P=0.01. Also, for female vegetable farmers' there was significant relationship between age (r=0.355), household size(r=0.3694) and years of farming experience (r=0.420) and utilisation of technologies. The study, therefore, concludes that male farmers utilised more SWC technologies than the females in the study area. It was therefore recommended that gender policies that could enhance female farmers' utilisation of SWC technologies in order to bridge the existing gender gaps should be introduced by the MicroVeg project administrators with a view to increasing soil fertility.