Awareness and use of Plantain Technology in Owan, Ovia North East Local Government of Edo State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study examined the awareness and use of plantain technology. Owan community in Ovia North east local government of Edo state was purposively sampled due to NIHORT intervention few years ago. The specific objectives considered in the study were socioeconomic characteristics of the respondents, farming activities of respondent’s household, and awareness and utilization of plantain technologies by respondent. Data were collected through a structured questionnaire administered through personal interviews with the respondents and analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The result showed that most (60.0%) of the respondents were females, all were married and majority(83.3%) were educated. Also, plantain/banana constituted 83.3% of crops
cultivated by the respondents. In the same vein results further showed that most (63.3%) of the respondents were aware of the improved varieties while 16.7% adopted the technology. Majority (73.3%) of the stakeholders that used the technology experience significant increment in the level of production after using NIHORT technology. Year variety was first adopted was found to be significant 0.027at p=0.005. The study concluded that there was low rate of adoption and thus recommended that there should be proper follow up and monitoring after technology has been disseminated to farmers.