ANALYSIS OF GENDER KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDE AND PRACTICES ON WHEAT FARMING IN JIGAWA STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

The study analyzed gender knowledge, attitude and practices on wheat farming in Jigawa State, Nigeria. Multi-stage sampling procedure was used to select 352 men and 151 women making a total of 503 respondents. Data were collected through the use of structured questionnaire, analyzed using frequency distribution, percentages, mean scores, standard deviation, and Probit analysis. The result revealed that the majority (70%) of the respondents were male. Meanwhile, 55.4% male respondents had a household size between 6-10 persons. Majority (64.2%) of the female respondents had a farm size between 0.5-1.0 hectares and 80.8% of them obtained their farmland through inheritance. About 67.5% of the male respondents had 6-10 years of wheat farming experience. About, 68% of the male respondents had 1000 kg and above of wheat yield per hectare. About 69% of the male respondents had access to extension services and therefore had high knowledge on critical irrigation stage for wheat with a mean score of 1.59. The coefficient of age, gender, marital status, education level, farming experience and access to farm inputs were positively related to knowledge, attitude and practices (KAP) at P≤0.01. Men and women participated in wheat farming, except that, on average male respondents had a higher knowledge and extensively practices wheat farming than the women, as a result of men’s better access to extension services, larger farm size, among other things. Extension agent should be intensifying educational campaigns for attitudinal change, through regular trainings to ensure knowledge gets into farmers’ hand and fields, and encourage the women to be more inclusive in wheat farming.