SMED:

dynamic, it is showing rapid growth and constant development, both of which need to be supported by new technologies. Research needs depend upon the evolution of the sector and in particular upon factors like diversification of production, new marketing possibilities and also changes in and/or updating of relevant legislations (European Commission, 2012). According to Halberg (2006), organic farming is labour and knowledge-intensive whereas conventional farming is capital-intensive, requiring more energy and manufactured inputs. Therefore, information about organic farming has to be made available to encourage practitioners in this sector of agriculture. Generally, basic information on organic agriculture is lacking in Nigeria while information about organic production techniques are also lacking among farmers.

In order to promote and engender ecological organic agriculture practices in Nigeria, detailed and comprehensive information of the current state of knowledge and information need about ecological organic agriculture practices will be necessary. Given the foregoing, the study proposed to assess the level of awareness and knowledge of farmers about ecological organic agriculture in south-west Nigeria. Specifically, the study is to:

– ascertain farmers' level of awareness of ecological organic agriculture – find out the extent of involvement in EOA activities in the area – determine the farmers' knowledge on ecological organic agriculture – find out the opinions of farmers about ecological organic agriculture

The study hypothesised that there is no significant relationship between the knowledge of farmers about EOA activities and their perceptions of organic agriculture in the study area.

Materials and Methods

The study area is south-western Nigeria consists of Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Osun, Ondo and Ekiti states. Organic agriculture farmers constitute the population for the study. Multistage sampling procedure was used to select the respondents for the study. Fifty percent of the states (Oyo, Ogun and Osun) were selected using random sampling technique. In each of selected states 20% of the organic agriculture groups were selected. Thereafter, 10% of the members of each of the selected groups were selected; this gave rise to a sample size of 320 respondents.

Questionnaire was used as the research instrument for the study; it was however administered as interview schedule to illiterate respondents. Data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics such as frequencies, percentages and mean, while inferential statistics such as PPMC to test for relationship between the variables in the stated hypotheses of the study.

Results

Awareness of EOA

The result of the study about awareness of EOA revealed that 53.1% of the respondents are within the category of high level of awareness of EOA in the study area. The implication of this finding is that awareness of the farmers in the region will lead to involvement in ecological organic agriculture production with the attendant benefits; ecological benefits, health, environmental, as well as the potentials at increasing the level of income of the farmers in the study area.

46.90% 53.10% 43.00% 44.00% 45.00% 46.00% 47.00% 48.00% 49.00% 50.00% 51.00% 52.00% 53.00% 54.00% P er ce nt Low High Level of awareness

Figure 1. Distribution of respondents by level of awareness of EOA

Involvement in EOA

The study assessed the involvement of farmers in ecological organic agriculture activities; this is as regards extent of use of the various EOA innovations. Results on Figure 2 showed that more than half 53.1% of the respondents were in the category of high level involvement in organic agriculture practices, while 46.9% are in the low level category. This finding is encouraging despite the generally unfavourable opinions about the activities. This level of achievement can only be explained by the promotion activities, which has raised awareness substantially among the farmers.

46.90% 53.10% 43.00% 44.00% 45.00% 46.00% 47.00% 48.00% 49.00% 50.00% 51.00% 52.00% 53.00% 54.00% low high Pe rc en t

Figure 2 : Distribution of respondents by level of involvement in EOA

Level of knowledge of EOA

The results of the survey reveals that majority (53.1%) of the respondents had a high level of knowledge of organic agriculture. This result is not surprising, as it agrees with the earlier findings where majority of respondents were aware of organic agriculture practices, as well as more than half in high level in terms of use of EOA innovations.

122

Figure 2. Distribution of respondents by level of knowledge on EOA

0.00% 20.00% 40.00% 60.00% 80.00% Low High 26.90% 73.10% Pe rc en t

Farmers' opinion about EOA

The study gauged the opinions of farmers about EOA practices; results from the survey revealed that 60.6% of the respondents had unfavourable perceptions towards it, while only 39.4% had favourable opinion towards the concept. This finding is not strange given the fact that the essence of the concept is yet to be appreciated generally, even among the elites in the society. The public opinion about it is not expected to be different from the opinion of the farmers about it, given the fact that public appreciation of the concept will definitely influence their opinions about it. This will influence their perceptions of ecological organic agriculture as well their adoption of its practices.

39.40% 60.60% 0.00% 10.00% 20.00% 30.00% 40.00% 50.00% 60.00% 70.00% Favourable Unfavourable Opinion categories Pe rc en t

Figure 3. Distribution of respondents by opinions on EOA

Relationship between perceptions and of EOA

The study sought to establish relationship between opinions about EOA practices and extent of involvement in the activities. This is with the aim of ascertaining the extent to which the opinions of the practitioners influenced their involvements in the EOA practices. The result of the PPMC analysis in

References

European Commission (2012): Organic farming; good for nature, good for you. Directorate for Agriculture and Rural Development of the European Commission. Accessed at URL http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/organic/eu-policy/research-projects_en on 15 October 2012.

Halberg, N. (2006). Global development of organic agriculture: challenges and prospects. CABI. p. 297.

Rezvanfar, A., G. Eraktan and E. Olhan (2011): Determine of factors associated with the adoption of organic agriculture among small farmers in Iran. African Journal of Agricultural Research

Vol. 6(13), p. 2954.

Malek-Saeidi H., K. Rezaei-Moghaddam, and A. Ajili (2012): Professionals' attitudes towards organic farming: the case of Iran. Journal of Agricultural Science and Technology. J. Agr. Sci. Tech. Vol. 14: 37-50.

Table 1 shows that opinions of the practitioners significantly (r=0.136) influenced their involvement in the EOA activities. This means that those who had favourable opinion about EOA are substantially involved in the activities. Though the relationship is statistically significantly, low (13.6%) strength of relationship implied that there are practitioners who still had unfavourable opinion about the concept, which as explained earlier, stemmed from the general opinion about ecological organic agriculture among the people generally in the society.

The picture depicted by significant relationship between opinions and involvement in EOA practices fulfilled the a priori expectation that it is those who have favourable opinion about an issue that would be involved in it. The finding was equally supported by other studies that established significant relationship between attitude and adoption of organic agriculture innovations (Rezvanfaret al, 2011 and Malek-Saeidi et al, 2012).

Table 1. PPMC for test of relationship between opinions and involvement in EOA practices

Variables r-value p-value

Involvement in EOA activities vs.

Perceptions on EOA

0.136* 0.015

* Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed). Conclusions

Favourable opinion about ecological organic agriculture activities led to significant involvement in the activities. There must be conscious efforts at promoting opinions about organic agriculture to the larger society in order to ensure its acceptance by the people and profitability by the practitioners.

Acknowledgements

The study acknowledged the funding by Swedish Society for Nature Conservation -SSNC) through the Biovision Africa Trust and the Nigerian Organic Agriculture Network (NOAN). The contribution and efforts of the project country coordinator, Dr O. O. AdeOluwa, his genuine concerns and effective monitoring are duly acknowledged.

Introduction

Sustainable Agriculture Trainers' Network (SATNET) in collaboration with National Organic Agriculture Movement of Uganda (NOGAMU) and Organic Denmark (OD) has since 2009 seen the establishment of over 130 ecological FFLGs in the Rwenzori region. An FFLG is a group of 15-30 small holder farmers who come together to improve their livelihoods through ecological farming alternatives. The practical learning is done in rotation such that every farmer's farm is uniquely studied to cater for the variations from one farm to another. In every FFLG, learning is guided by a Community Process Facilitator (CPF). A CPF is someone knowledgeable and experienced in ecological farming and has innovative skills to lead the group into achieving its agreed goals. A typical FFLG therefore is characterized by learning with and from each other the ecological/good traditional farming methods, working on each member's farm as a group, savings and credit schemes, joint marketing of produce and taking communal social responsibility (Mette et al., 2012).

The Rwenzori region of Uganda is a mountainous area, highly populated, endowed with relatively naturally fertile alluvial soils that are inherently capable of giving life to a diversity of crops and animals. According to the 2008 baseline survey for the FFLG project, majority of farmers in the Rwenzori use practices that fall between traditional and ecological farming methods by default. This is partly due to

Keywords: Farmer family learning, Traditional, Ecological, Social responsibility, Cohesion.

Abstract

The benefits of ecological/organic farming alternatives are innumerable compared to the requirements for attaining such a valuable production system. The ecological farming alternatives have been easily adopted through the use of participatory community based agricultural farmer extension approaches such as the Farmer Family Learning Groups (FFLGs) in the Rwenzori region. During the five years of the FFLGs in the Rwenzori region, adoption of ecological/organic farming alternatives has fostered the Culture of sharing agro- inputs, Social capital building, Learning and innovation collaborations, Guaranteed trust, Appreciation for indigenous knowledge, Cost cutting along the value chain, Cost effective Seed management systems, Ecological resilience to economic losses, Labor efficiency, Increased production, productivity and associated income rises. Thus, ecological farming alternatives present a strong solution to most constraints that trap majority of the farmers in a vicious cycle of poverty. This paper presents a case for the upscaling and out scaling of ecological/organic farming alternatives.

The Potential of Ecological Farming in Delivering Social and