Women's Awareness and Utilization of Agroforestry Practices in Oluyole Local Government Area of Oyo State, Nigeria

The farmers have not received enough information on agroforestry activities. Few women have opportunities of education and training in agroforestry. Many programmes tend to overlook women's specific needs regarding agroforestry mainly because policymakers and planners lack adequate information to address them. Hence this study is designed to provide information on women's awareness and utilisation of agroforestry practices in Oluyole local government area of Oyo state, Nigeria. There are 10 wards in the local government and 4 wards were randomly selected with an average of 25 women farmers randomly interviewed in each of the selected wards giving a total sample size of 100 respondents. Data were collected from the respondents using opened-end questions administered as interview schedule. The results showed that majority (86.0 %) of the respondents were within the age of 20 and 49 years. Sixty-five percent of respondents have no formal education while 64.0% of the women were engaged in farming activities. Ninety-six percent of the women were married. Ninety-one percent have family size ranging from 3 to 10 persons within their households. Also, majority of the women had access to land. High numbers of respondents are aware of shifting cultivation (92.0%), pastorium (79.0%), household garden (78.0%), border planting (74.0%) and apiculture (61.0%) while few are aware of alley cropping (15.0%), taungya (31.0%) and green fences (33.0%). The systems of agroforestry most of the respondent are still practicing are pastorium (64.0%), while few still practice household garden (24.0%), border planting (20.0%), taungya (7.0%) but none of the respondents is practicing green fences. There was significant relationship between the number of practices the women were aware of and the number of practices they use (r=0.285, p<0.05). There was no significant relationship between education acquired, marital status, family size and the level of utilisation of agroforestry by women. Although, there was a significant relationship between age and the number of practices utilised (r=0.279, p<0.05), age, marital status, education, family size had no significant relationship with awareness of agroforestry possessed. Based on the result of the study, it can be inferred that the level of agroforestry practices used are determined by the number of practices the women are aware of or exposed to. Also, the older people used fewer practices while the younger ones used more. Therefore, information about agroforestry should be effectively extended to women.