Rural Land Utilization and Commercial Agriculture among Female arable Crop Farmers in South West Nigeria

Abstract

Utilization of agricultural land for non-agricultural purposes poses a threat to food production and agriculture commercialization. Hence, this study examined Rural Land Utilization and Commercial Agriculture among Female arable Crop Farmers in South West Nigeria. A multistage sampling procedure was used to collect primary data through questionnaire administration. Findings shows that 71.62% of the women had land market index of 0, indicating that they obtained their land through non-transaction based method and 28.38% acquired their land through transaction based method. Maize 65% and Cassava 41% was found to drive commercialization most, while the Probit regression analysis shows that land market index (p0.05), households size (p<0.10) and access to credit (p<0.01) were the major variables influencing commercialization. Provision of micro credit schemes through establishment of microfinance Banks and policy formulation to allow land redistribution so that non-indigenous female crop farmers can access more farmland is recommended