Factors affecting the adoption of cropping system among arable crop farmers in South West Nigeria

Choice of appropriate cropping system by arable crop farmers in the tropics is mostly based on type of crop cultivated, soil structure and texture, soil fertility, vegetation belt and the rainfall regime among others. The study examined factors affecting adoption of cropping system among arable crop farmers in Southwest Nigeria. A total of 316 respondents were selected using multistage sampling procedure and copies of well-structured questionnaire as instrument of data collection. socioeconomic characteristics, majorly adopted cropping system, types of crops commonly cultivated, factors affecting choice of cropping systems and constraints to cropping systems were the specific objectives stated. Parametric analytical tools used to achieve the stated objectives were descriptive statistics, multinomial logit regression (MLR) and Likert scale rating (LSR). Results of the socioeconomic characteristics revealed average age (54years), household size (8members), farming experience (24.5years), extension contacts (5 times) and farm size (1.80 hectares). Mixed cropping (64.9%) ranked first among the most adopted cropping system and maize was the most common crop cultivated among farmers. Multinomial regression results suggested that education and experience influenced adoption of mixed cropping system significantly, while the log-likelihood (-264.683; p<0.01) and likelihood chi2 (29.85; p<0.01) indicated appropriateness of the model. Hypothesis tested for cropping system (t=36.344; p<0.01) and crop yield (t=21.146; p<0.01) suggested that cropping system and crop yield are directly related and the null hypothesis was rejected. It is recommended that more awareness on modern cropping system should be introduced to farmers by extension agents in the study area.