ASSESSMENT OF ATTITUDES OF MAIZE FARMERS TOWARD E-WALLET INFORMATION SCHEME ON FERTILIZER UTILIZATION IN BAUCHI STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

The study assessed the attitudes of maize farmers towards e-wallet information scheme on fertilizer utilization in Bauchi State, Nigeria. Multi-stage sampling techniques was used to select one hundred and sixty (160) registered Growth Enhancement Support Scheme (GESS) farmers. Data for the study were collected through a structured questionnaire and analysed using descriptive statistics (frequencies, percentages and mean scores). The result revealed that majority (68.1%) of the respondents were males, with mean ages of 45 years. The result also revealed that 36.9% had secondary education, with a mean farming experience of 14.5 years. The mean household size of the respondents was 8 persons with 41.9% and 25.0% had their major occupation as farming and artisanship, respectively. The result showed that the respondents were satisfied with the scheme activities and consider the quantity of fertilizer and cost of fertilizer to be effective with a mean 3.68 and 3.82 respectively. The result further revealed that the respondents had positive attitude toward the scheme as they strongly disagreed that e-wallet does not end up as a failure (X=4.43) and that the too many noise of success was not a propaganda (X=4.49) and disagreed that the beneficiaries were not selected based on their influence. Some of the constraints identified with the scheme includes poor network (45.6%) and long distance to redemption centres (33.0%). It can be concluded that, the scheme brought great changes in yield, access to fertilizers at subsidized rate and access to improved seed. It is recommended that accessibility to redemption centres and network could increase wider coverage of e-wallet system in the study area.