Effects of Farmers’ Socio-economic Characteristics on their Perception on Cassava Production in Ondo State, Nigeria

The study examined the effects of farmers’ socio-economic characteristics on their perception on cassava production in of Ondo State. A multistage sampling technique was used to select 120 respondents and a well-structured questionnaire was used to elicit responses on socio - economic characteristics and other relevant variables for the study. Both descriptive and inferential statistics among which mean, Chi-square and Pearson Product Moment Correlation (PPMC), were used to analyse the data. Results showed that the mean age for cassava producers was 43 years and 77.5% were males. Majority of the respondents were married (90.8%) with an average household size of 10 and 85% had formal education. Small farm size was prevalent in the study area with most respondents (60.8%), having less than 2.0 hectares and 57.7% had less than 10 years of farming experience. The average annual income from cassava was ₦183,333.33 with an annual average of cassava yield of 711.6 kg. Responses to perception statements by farmers on cassava production had a grand mean of 3.1 and 3.3 mean score for attitudinal statements. The main source of information on cassava production was from co-farmers. Chi-square analysis showed a significant association between farmers’ age (χ2 = 53.3, ρ≤ 0.00), sex (χ2 = 36.3, ρ≤ 0.00), marital status (χ2 = 178.9, ρ≤ 0.00), education (χ2 = 102.3, ρ≤ 0.00), household size (χ2 = 59.9, ρ≤ 0.00) except for religion (χ2 = 1.03, ρ≤ 0.309) and their perception on cassava production. The correlation analysis of income versus perception towards cassava added value showed r-value of 0.280 at 0.01 level of significance. It was therefore, concluded that, socio-economic characteristics of the farmers affected their perception of cassava production and recommended that farmers should embrace value addition so as to increase income generated from cassava production.