Determination of adoption stage of precision agriculture technology among extension workers and crops farmers in Benue state, Nigeria

Major causes of food insecurity are the use of inadequate data on agrarian lands, climate change, high cost of inputs and general insecurity etc. Farmers therefore, need to take informed decision based on accurate and timely data. This study determined adoption stage of precision agriculture technology among extension workers and crops farmers in Benue State, Nigeria. The result shows that the respondents were mature and active with a mean age of 39.12 years. Majority (79.00%) were male and married (81.82%) with a mean income of N 553,072,000 per annum. Many (73.35%) were members of one association or the other with 12.33 mean years of formal schooling. The result further shows that, respondents generally have access (1.87) to precision agriculture technology. Content (x? =2.96) and nature of precision agriculture technology(x?=2.74) were the most important factors that were perceived to determine its adoption. While 53.29% of the respondents were aware of the existence of precision agriculture technology, 48.28% were aware of the existence of precision agriculture technology and had developed interest in the technology. The Chi-square of 34.02 (df=10) for model coefficient indicated that socio-economic characteristics were statistically and significantly related to adoption of precision agriculture technology, hence the null hypothesis was rejected. The study concludes that extension workers and farmers in Benue State were generally at the awareness stage as far as precision agriculture technology was concerned, though a few had shown interest in the technology. It is therefore, recommended that there should be massive enlightenment on the existence of precision agriculture technology and training and demonstration centres should be established across the state to enable extension workers and crops farmers take full advantage of the potentials of the technology.