Assessment of Land Management Practices in Food Crops Production among Small Scale Farmers in Kwara State, Nigeria

The study carried out an assessment of agricultural land managementpractices in food crops production among smallscale farmers in kwara sate, nigeria. specifically, the studydetermined the socio economic characteristics of crop farmers inkwara state; ascertained the cropping patterns common amongthem; highlighted the soil conservation methods adopted by thefarmers; examined the relationship between selected socio-economiccharacteristics of the farmers and their adoption of major agriculturalland management practices; and investigated the constraints toadoption of sustainable agricultural practices among crop farmersin kwara state, nigeria a three stage random sampling techniquewas used in selecting a total of one hundred and forty four smallscale food crops farmers. descriptive statistics, binary logistic regressionmodel and four point likert-type scale were used toanalyse the data for the study. the study revealed that food cropsproduction in kwara state is dominated by middle aged men whoare poorly educated and have poor access to agricultural extensionservices. half of the respondents (48.60%) adopted cereal-basedcropping systems. 48.6% of the farmers adopted a minimum ofthree management practices. crop rotation was mostly adopted byall the farmers while irrigation was the least adopted by only29.3% of the respondents. furthermore, the study revealed thatfarm size, age, education status, number of contacts with extensionagents, household size and number of farm plots of the respondentswere the significant factors affecting their adoption of land managementpractices. the study also revealed that the major constraintsto the use of sustainable crop management practices among thefarmers included inadequate supply of fertilizer, inadequacy oflabour and credit, poor knowledge of improved agriculturalpractices, poor transportation, low produce prices and high cost ofproduction. the study recommended the need for training programmeon the use of appropriate sustainable practices that will take intoaccount the cropping systems adopted by the farmers.