Abstract:
This study assessed farmers’ participation in On-Farm Adaptive Research (OFAR) technologies on cassava and maize production in Nasarawa state agricultural and rural development authority. Five research questions were answered while five related null hypotheses were formulated and tested at 0.05 level of significance. A survey research design was used for the study. Simple random sampling technique was used to draw out the sample size of the registered farmers from the population. A structured questionnaire containing 51 items was used to collect data for the study, each of the structured questionnaire items was assigned four response options, the instrument was face validated by three experts from University of Nigeria Nsukka. To establish the reliability of the instrument the instrument was administered to ten 10 registered farmers in Taraba state outside the study area and reliability co-efficient of 0.86 was obtained using the cronbatch alpha reliability method. The data collected were analyzed using mean and standard deviation to answer the research questions and t-test statistic to test the hypothesis at probability level of 0.05. The statistical package for the social science (SPSS) was used for the analysis. Emerging from the study are level of farmers’ participation in OFAR experimental phases, extent of usage of OFAR technologies on cassava and maize, constraints to farmers participation and strategies of enhancing farmers participation. The hypotheses of the study showed no significant differences in all the variables presented. Based on the findings of the study, recommendations were made. Technology by the farmers and also a decline in their commitment to using the technology. Farmers need to form co-operative societies in other to pull their resources together to procure farm inputs. NARDA should organize farmers in collaboration with researchers to promote farmers participation in OFAR. State Government should make effort to provide credit scheme to individuals and groups at minimal conditions of repaying and assessing the scheme.
