ADOPTION AND CHALLENGES ASSOCIATED WITH ORGANIC FARMING IN BOGORO LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA, BAUCHI STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

The study investigated the adoption and challenges associated with organic farming in Bogoro local government, Bauchi State, Nigeria. A snowball sampling technique was employed to contact 90 respondents. Data was gathered using a well-constructed questionnaire and was examined using both descriptive and inferential statistics. Logistic regression analysis was employed to examine the components that affected organic farming adoption. The outcomes revealed that the majority (98.9%) of the respondents were aware of organic farming due to visits by extension agents.  Socio-economic factors such as education (0.065), gender (0.548), visits by extension agents (0.313), household size (0.094), source of information (0.453), access to credit (1.552) and farmers’ cooperative membership (0.902) positively influenced their organic farming adoption. Conversely, age of the farmers (-0.532) and farm size (-0.083) negatively influenced farmers adoption of organic farming. Constraints/challenges faced by farmers include; the high cost of organic farming, unavailability of organic inputs, low technical know-how, consumers yet to appreciate the difference between the production of the two farming systems, poor market outlet, poor storage facilities and inadequate information. It was recommended that to take advantage of the components, policies that guide farmers’ decisions on the adoption of organic farming should be framed and if well implemented could boost agricultural production and help in environmental sustainability.