Factors affecting the adoption of sawah technology system of rice production in Nigeria

This study examined factors affecting the adoption of sawah technology in Nigeria. A structured interview guide was used to collect data from 124 farmers purposefully selected based on their participation in sawah. The results showed that respondents were predominantly male, married and had Quranic education, with mean age of 42.30 years. The mean household size was 14, farm sizes ranged from 0.03 to10 hectares (mean 0.5 ha), the mean yield was 4.65 tons per hectare. Factors identified affecting farmers’ adoption of sawah technology were communication, attributes of the innovation, attitude of farmers toward the innovation and the availability of necessary resources. The regression analysis showed that adoption was positively related to awareness (β = 0.802; p<0.01), attitude of farmers (β = 0.480; p<0.01), attributes of sawah technology (β = 0.328; p<0.01), access to contact farmers (β = 0.51; p<0.00) and household size (β = 0.246; p<0.05). However, adoption was negatively related to constraints faced by farmers (β = -0.32; p<0.02) and the age (β = -0.444; p<0.01). The study revealed that awareness of sawah technology was high among the farmers and influenced their adoption of sawah technology. Attitude of farmers, attributes of sawah technology, access to contact farmers and household size influenced the adoption of sawah technology.