HE ROLE OF AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMMES (ADPs) IN PROMOTING THE PRODUCTION OF GUM ARABIC (Acacia senegalensis) IN BORNO STATE, NIGERIA

The study assessed the role of Agricultural Development Programmes (ADP) in the promotion of gum arabic production in Borno State, Nigeria. About 115 gum Arabic farmers were interviewed from purposively selected nine out of twenty-seven local governments’ areas with high concentration of gum arabic producers. The data were collected using structured questionnaire and analyzed using descriptive statistics. The results showed that 96.5% of the respondents were male with mean age of 36 and 93.9% were married. Significant proportion (40%) of the farmers attended tertiary institutions. Majority (83%) were small scale producers cultivating on 1-3 hectares of land. It was discovered that ADPs through their extension agents extend new technologies to gum Arabic farmers including processing techniques. Some technologies enlighten by the extension agent were the use of improve seedling and spraying of herbicide (100% each), seedlings procurement (94.8%) and gum inducing techniques (89.6%). The study concludes that, the ADP activities to gum Arabic farmers were appreciable as can be seen from level of adoption of technologies by the farmers in the study area. It is therefore recommended that ADP should encourage young and peasant farmers to be involved in gum arabic production.