Speakers - AFHWC2025

Abstract

Environmental effects and proper knowledge on the use of agrochemicals is germane in achieving the 2030 SDG of environmental sustainability and sustainable production. This study assessed small-scale farmers’ knowledge on use of agrochemicals and its environmental effects in Izzi LGA, Nigeria. Simple random sampling technique was used to select 120 farmers for the study. Data collected from primary source were analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. The result revealed that majority of the farmers (52.5%) were males with an average age of 37 years. The mean annual farm income was N269, 667, with an average household size of 5 persons and mean farming experience of 8 years. The average farm size was 3 hectares. Result further revealed that the most available agrochemicals in the study area is NPK 25:13:13(69.2%) and most available herbicides was Red force (62.5%). Furthermore, the major insecticides in the area were Laraforce, Rambo and Lindane (58.3%). Again, the most available fungicides was SAAF (63.3%). The farmers level of knowledge on use of agrochemicals was low as farmers lacked knowledge on the duration of the chemical before checking for its effectiveness on crops ( = 2.86). From the result, farmers were not aware of other environmental effects of use of agrochemicals like its contamination of water bodies. The result of the multiple regression analysis showed high R² value of 0.820 indicating that 82% of knowledge on use of agrochemicals and its environmental effects was greatly influenced by the socioeconomic factors. The study identified information, financial, and technical as the major constraints to knowledge on use and environmental effects of agrochemicals and recommends that Knowledge on safety of farmers and the environment should be prioritized by the state government and measures to curb environmental effects of use of agrochemicals introduced.

Keywords: small scale, farmers, agrochemicals, environment, Izzi, Ebonyi, Nigeria