Adoption of Appropriate Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs) Technologies among Smallholder Farmers in Nigeria

Abstract

Low and slow adoption of modern agricultural technologies among smallholder farmers many times discourage researchers and innovation promotion efforts in Sub-Saharan Africa communities. That is particularly true for improved technologies that require working capital and little time to materialize. This study investigates the level of awareness and the adoption of Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs) technologies among smallholder farmers in Kaduna State Nigeria. The study utilized a mixed methods approach to survey 200 smallholder households in Giwa and Sabon-gari Local Government Area of Kaduna State, Nigeria. Findings show that the level of awareness of GAPs technologies was low among smallholder. The study also found that after the GAPs training there was high level of adoption and acceptance of the GAPs technologies by smallholder farmers. Similarly, the chi-square test results show that thirteen (13) GAPs technologies were statistically significant at (P <0.05**). It was found that a greater proportion (84%) of the farmers indicated that the GAPs trainings were effective and provides them with new skills and information. The study also found that extension visits and SMS text reminders interventions encouraged farmers and had positive impact on GAPs adoption. In this study, smallholders unanimously ranked financial constraints, high cost of fertilizers and addiction to traditional method of farming as the major barrier to adoption in the study area. The study also recommends that agricultural policy maker should streamline improved technologies to the meet specific conditions of the rural communities for more rapid adoption and sustainability. Government should invest in improved technologies considered to be cost effective with a clear impact on the adoption decisions of smallholders.

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International Journal of Agricultural Research, Sustainability, and Food Sufficiency (IJARSFS)
Vol. 7(02) 26 October, 2020, Pp. 447-458
www.academiascholarlyjournal.org/ijarsfs/index_ijarsfs.htm
ISSN: 2360-932X©Academia Scholarly Journals
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Open access
Adoption of Appropriate Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs)
Technologies among Smallholder Farmers in Nigeria
Sennuga Samson Olayemi1*, Angba Augustine Oko2 and Fadiji Taiye Oduntan3
1School of Agriculture, Food and Environment, Royal Agricultural University, Stroud Road, Cirencester,
Gloucester, United Kingdom, GL76JS.
2Department of Agricultural Extension and Rural Sociology, University of Calabar, Calabar, Nigeria.
3Department of Agricultural Extension and Rural Sociology, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Abuja, FCT,
P.M.B. 117, Abuja, Nigeria.
*Corresponding Author’s Contact Details: Email address ✉: dr.yemisennuga@yahoo.co.uk
Accepted October 16, 2020
Low and slow adoption of modern agricultural technologies among smallholder farmers many times
discourage researchers and innovation promotion efforts in Sub-Saharan Africa communities. That is
particularly true for improved technologies that require working capital and little time to materialize.
This study investigates the level of awareness and the adoption of Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs)
technologies among smallholder farmers in Kaduna State Nigeria. The study utilized a mixed methods
approach to survey 200 smallholder households in Giwa and Sabon-gari Local Government Area of
Kaduna State, Nigeria. Findings show that the level of awareness of GAPs technologies was low among
smallholder. The study also found that after the GAPs training there was high level of adoption and
acceptance of the GAPs technologies by smallholder farmers. Similarly, the chi-square test results
show that thirteen (13) GAPs technologies were statistically significant at (P <0.05**). It was found that
a greater proportion (84%) of the farmers indicated that the GAPs trainings were effective and provides
them with new skills and information. The study also found that extension visits and SMS text
reminders interventions encouraged farmers and had positive impact on GAPs adoption. In this study,
smallholders unanimously ranked financial constraints, high cost of fertilizers and addiction to
traditional method of farming as the major barrier to adoption in the study area. The study also
recommends that agricultural policy maker should streamline improved technologies to the meet
specific conditions of the rural communities for more rapid adoption and sustainability. Government
should invest in improved technologies considered to be cost effective with a clear impact on the
adoption decisions of smallholders.
Keywords: Adoption, awareness, good agricultural practices, smallholder farmers, technology.
INTRODUCTION
Smallholder farmers within Sub Saharan Africa
(SSA) face a number of challenges both in terms of production and in marketing their surplus produce.
Generally, the focuses of agricultural policies are to

448. Int. J. Agric. Res. Sustain. Food Sufficiency
guide farmers to optimize production without
damaging the natural resources they depend on.
Agricultural production in Nigeria has been largely
dependent on the concerted efforts of small-scale
farmers who are mainly in the rural areas. Ogungbile
and Olukosi (2001) outlined the common
characteristics of resource-poor farmers which
include; stark poverty, illiteracy, malnourishment,
financial inadequacies and low rates of return on their
small investments. In order to address some of the
challenges faced by stakeholders, a number of
policies and extension strategies have been
implemented, one of these was the World Bank
Assisted Agricultural Development Projects (ADP)
that were introduced into Nigeria in 1975 including
the component of the Training and Visit (T&V)
extension system which was initially enthusiastically
adopted in many states (Idachaba, 2007; Sennuga et
al., 2020a).
GAPs entail the collection of principles for on-farm
production and post-production processes, aimed at
delivering in safe and healthy food and non-food
agricultural products, while taking into account
economic, social and environmental sustainability
(FAO, 2010; Lefebvre et al., 2015; Sennuga, 2019).
GAPs cover a range of areas including maintaining
soil fertility, water resource and irrigation
management, crop land management, degraded land
restoration, animal production and welfare,
integrated pest management, integrated fertilizer
management and conservation agriculture (FAO,
2010; Montagne et al., 2017). GAPs explicitly aim to
increase the supply of safe and high-quality food by
promoting more sustainable crop production
(Sennuga, 2019) while also helping to improve
market access and farmers’ livelihoods (Poole and
Lynch, 2013). Although GAPs have the potential to
play a significant role in improving agricultural
practices, there is currently limited empirical
evidence on the level of awareness and
implementation of GAPs.
GAPs were introduced and implemented by the
FAO in many agricultural producing countries across
the globe in order to guide the production systems
towards an ecologically safe and sustainable
agriculture, which produces harmless products of
higher quality, contributes effectively to food security,
generating income through the access to markets
and upsurges the working conditions of farming
families (FAO, 2010). GLOBALGAP is a privatized
version of GAP adoption formulated into audited
standards linked to access to more formal markets
including exports. As such, they can underpin the
production of safe high-quality food and non-food
agricultural products for the producer countries
(Oyewole and Sennuga, 2020). Global GAP
standards are economically, socially,
environmentally responsible and widely accepted by
international markets such as the EU and USA
(Wannamolee, 2010; Sennuga et al., 2020b). From
all views, GAPs can be of significant benefit and high
value if judiciously implemented by smallholder
farmers as proponents of those good practices. They
rely on four major principles:
i. Economically and efficiently produce sufficient
food security, safe food safety and nutritious
food (food quality).
ii. Sustain and enhance natural resources
iii. Maintain viable farming enterprises and
contribute to sustainable livelihoods.
iv. Meet the cultural and social demands of
society.
The awareness of GAPs is relatively low in rural
Nigeria due to dependence on traditional farming
which results in low productivity among smallholder
farmers (Oladele and Adekoya, 2006). Evidence
from studies conducted among smallholder
producers indicates limited adoption of improved
technologies (Omonona et al., 2016, Oyewole and
Sennuga, 2020, Sennuga and Fadiji, 2020).
However, land degradation, pests and diseases, lack
of appropriate production technologies, lack of
labour-saving technologies for field operations and
processing, and inadequate supply of yield-
enhancing inputs and poor harvest agricultural
practices are major factors influencing low
agricultural production in Nigeria (Binam et al., 2011;
Masette and Candia, 2011). In addition, market-
related constraints such as limited access to credit
facilities, high cost of farm inputs, poor access to
output markets; and weak linkage between farmers
and markets (Udoh and Omonona, 2008). Ineffective
extension systems and lack of policy incentives also
constrain agricultural productivity (Binam et al., 2011,
Sennuga and Fadiji, 2020). These challenges
adversely affect food security and sustainable
agricultural development. For maximum benefit
however, it is imperative to couple adoption of GAP
innovations with an accompanying market uptake
pathway for sustainable agricultural development
and food security (Kassie et al., 2010; Sennuga et al.,
2020a). As a result, it is evident that the adoption of
market-driven GAPs, agricultural production
technologies coupled with natural resource

management practices is essential for enhancing
agricultural productivity in rural Nigeria. Therefore,
the main objective of this study is to find out the level
of adoption of appropriate Good Agricultural
Practices technologies among smallholder farmers in
Kaduna State, Nigeria (Table 2).
The specific objectives of this study are to:
i. examine the socio-economic characteristics of
the farmers in the study area;
ii. investigate the level of adoption of GAPs
technologies by the respondents;
iii. explore the effectiveness of the GAPs training
among smallholder farmers;
iv. explore the impact of extension visits and SMS
text reminders on GAPs adoption;
v. highlight the barriers to adoption of GAPs
technologies in the study area.
METHODOLOGY
Study area
The study was carried out in two rural communities
(Shika and Bassawa) in Giwa and Sabon-gari Local
Government Areas of Kaduna State, Nigeria.
Kaduna State is politically classified as belonging to
the North-West zone of the six (6) Geo-political zones
of Nigeria, which is located in the Northern Guinea
Savannah agro-ecological zone of the country and
experiences a tropical continental climate with two
recognizable seasonal, dry and rainy reasons.
Constitutionally, the state is divided into twenty-three
Local Government Areas (Sennuga et al., 2020).
Among these are Giwa, Sabon-gari, Kaura, Kaduna
North, Birni Gwari. These areas are largely
dominated by Hausa and Fulani with other ethnic
groups. The study area was purposively selected due
to active engagement of the rural dwellers in
agricultural production in the district and for its
proximity to Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria to
facilitate access for the researcher and the
assistants. The researcher collected the list of
smallholder farmers in the study area from the office
of Agricultural Development Programme (ADP) the
government extension sector who is working in the
area. From the context of fieldwork, the two
communities are similar in agro-climatic, ethnic
group, religion and cultural settings. The major cash
crop in the area is ginger where commercial
quantities of 1,728.930 metric tons are produced
annually as well as food crops including yam, maize,
Sennuga et al. 449
millet, groundnut, rice, cassava, beans, guinea corn.
Participants and data collection
The sample size for the study was 200 smallholder
farmers (Table 3). It consists of 100 farmers from
each community. Village meeting were organized
during the first visit to the study area. However,
during the second visit (April 2017) to the study area,
the researchers, assisted by two extension workers
from academia, National Agricultural Extension and
Research Liaison Services (NAERLS) who
communicate effectively in local dialect (Hausa
language) and are also familiar with the targeted
study area, undertook a farmer participatory training
programme on 16 GAPs technologies. The farmer
participatory training was strategically designed by
the researchers as a farmer-centered process of
purposeful and creative collaboration between the
researcher and smallholder farmers. The main
purpose of this collaboration was to develop GAPs
technologies that would meet the local environmental
conditions of the smallholder farmers via exchange of
experiences with the farmers and to actively involve
the end-user (farmers) in the development process.
Rather than developing and releasing “perfected”
technology packages which may eventually not meet
the farming and living conditions of the farmers (a
typical top-down approach). Oladele and Adekoya
(2006) observed that the awareness of GAP
technologies is relatively low in rural Nigeria. The 16
GAPs technologies collectively selected as
appropriate for the training in the communities
includes; improved seeds, soil management,
spraying of herbicide, pesticide control, improved
planting spacing of crops, use of crop residue to feed
livestock, cover crops, striga control, water
management, crop rotation, improved storage,
compost and green manure, zero tillage, spacing and
mulching.
Study sample and sampling technique
The sample size for the study was 200 smallholder
farmers (Table 3). It consists of 100 farmers from
each community. Within each community, farm
families were invited to participate in the study
through community meetings, in which 137 farmers
attended from Bassawa and 142 from Shika, and 8
extension workers were in attendance. From this
sampling frame of individuals, 100 farming
households were randomly selected from each

450. Int. J. Agric. Res. Sustain. Food Sufficiency
Table 1. Demographic
representation of the socio-
economic Characteristics of the
smallholder farmers (n= 200).
Variables
Percentage
Age (years)
20-30
15.8
31-40
31.7
41-50
27.5
51-60
17.5
61-70
6.7
> 70
.8
Gender (Sex)
Male
100
Female
0
Marital status
Single
3.3
Married
96.7
Household size
<10
50.8
11-20
36.4
21-30
12.1
>31
.7
Level of education
No education
30.8
Primary
44.3
Secondary
17.0
Tertiary
7.5
Family education
No education
3.3
Primary
55.0
Secondary
35.8
Tertiary
2.5
No Children yet
3.3
Household Asset
Poultry
58.0
Sheep and goats
61.7
Cattle
42.8
Other livestock
6.5
Pig
0
community; primarily on the basis of volunteer
families. The other criteria for individual participants
were as follows: age between 18 and 65years,
farming experience, interested in participating, and
permanent resident in the community. The foremost
rationale for selecting 100 farmers per community
were based largely on the number of farming
households that volunteered and showed interest
during the community meetings, as well as
conformed to the previously mentioned criteria. In the
same vein, this study seeks to have a deeper
understanding, exploration and in-depth analysis of a
real-life situation, which the effectiveness of
agricultural technologies training programme and
adoption of GAP technologies. Data were collected
using focus group discussion, in-depth interview and
structured questionnaires.
Data analysis
The data collected were analyzed using the
Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) to
produce percentages from frequency distribution,
spearman correlation and ranking etc.
RESULTS
Socio-economic characteristics of the rural
dwellers in the study area
The socio-economic characteristics of the
respondents investigated in the study included: age,
sex, marital status, household size, level of
education, major crops cultivated, household assets
and income level. The age of the farmers in the
households ranged from 20 to 70 years. 59.2% of
them fell within the middle age of 31-50years in both
communities. This suggests that the majority of the
respondents were within their economic active age
and this enhances their productivity in order to be
food secure (Table 1). The old age group (51-70) had
the lowest impact in farm work with 24.2%
contributing to active farming among the sampled
population. However, it is generally assumed that
younger people tended to be more productive than
their older counterparts. In the same vein, the results
in Table 1 showed that all the respondents were
males; this is because the cultural traditions of the
study area do not allow females to be actively
involved in farming activities (Sennuga and Fadiji,

Sennuga et al. 451
Figure 1. Level of awareness before GAPs training by the survey respondents
(N=200) Scale: %
2020). In term of the marital status of the
respondents, overwhelming majorities (96.7%) of the
respondents were married with half of these
households having 10 or more members; the
remainder had larger families of 21 plus members
reflecting polygamy within the communities. The
result is not surprising because large family sizes are
the norm in the Northern Nigeria and large families
provide accessible workforces. Furthermore, the
cultural tradition and religion allows the men to marry
at most four wives. The use of household labour for
several activities was very common in the study area
with activities such as ploughing, harrowing, planting,
weeding, chasing away straying domestic animals,
irrigation activities and harvesting. In the same vein,
large household may also help to access more
agricultural information.
Educationally, 44% of the respondents had
acquired primary education, while 17% had
secondary education. Only 7.5% of the respondents
possessed higher education (Table 1). This
suggests that the respondents in the study area
obtained the basic education required for better
understanding and ability to embrace new
technologies especially the adoption of GAPs
modern farming technology. In addition, it is
generally thought that the level of education
enhances the ability to comprehend and also adopt
relevant agricultural information. Indeed, according
to Kalungu and Filho (2016) and Sennuga (2019)
highly educated farmers tend to adopt relevant
agricultural technologies better than more illiterate
ones. In term of household asset, 58% of the
household keep poultry, a greater proportion (61.7%)
keep sheep and goats. A sizeable proportion of the
respondents (42%) also indicated that they rear cattle
and only 6.5% specified that they keep other livestock
such as camel, duck, turkey etc. The baseline
livelihood survey shows that no single household
keeps pigs in the study area. This was attributed to
the religion (Muslims) of the respondents. It was
revealed during the focus group discussion that the
Muslim faithful do not rear pigs.
Level of Adoption of GAPs technologies by the
respondents
Data in Figures 1 and 2 reveals the level of

452. Int. J. Agric. Res. Sustain. Food Sufficiency
Figure 2. Level of adoption After GAP training by the survey respondents (N= 200) Scale: %
awareness of GAPs technologies by the surveyed
before and after (i.e., pre and post) workshop or
training on GAPs technologies. Prior to the GAPs
training, a total of 200 questionnaires were used to
elicit information from the respondents, farmers were
requested to indicate their level of awareness and
level of adoption of improved technologies by using a
three-point Likert rating scale. The scale was as
follows: High = 3, Medium = 2 and Low = 1. The level
of adoption was determined using Spearman rank
correlation. Figure 1 (a - b) gives the summary of the
estimated results.
Figure 2 shows that all the GAPs technologies
displayed various degrees of adoption level after
GAPs training among the smallholders. In the same
vein, chi-square test results revealed that 13 GAPs
technologies were statistically significant at P <0.05
level indicating high level of adoption and acceptance
of the GAPs technologies by smallholder farmers.
They are: improved seeds, soil management,
spraying of herbicide, pesticide control, improved
planting spacing of crops, use of crop residue to feed
livestock, cover crops, striga control, water
management, crop rotation, improved storage and
compost and green manure. Generally, eleven out of
the 16 GAPs technologies developed together with
the smallholder farmers and trained in a participatory
approach have been classified as high adoption while
two of the GAP technologies were regarded as
medium and the rest (3) of the GAP technologies fell
under low adoption (Figure 2). The data shows that
farmers rated GAPs technologies high after the
workshop or GAPs training in terms of technology
transfers in the study area.
Effectiveness of the GAPs Technologies Training
among Smallholder Farmers
Training is assumed to have a strong influence on the
adoption decisions of smallholders since it creates
awareness about new improved technologies.
During the focus group discussions with farmers,
020 40 60 80 100 120
Improved seeds
Soil management
Spraying of herbicide
Pesticide use/Pest control
Improved planting spacing of crops
Use of crop residue to feed livestock
Cover crops
Striga control
Water management/irrigation
Crop rotation
Fertilizer application
Improved storage
Compost and Green Manure
Zero tillage
Spacing
Mulching
High
Medium
Low

Sennuga et al. 453
Table 2. Benefits of GAPs training among smallholder farmers.
Benefits GAPs training among farmers
Percentage
Providing farmers with new skills and information
84.6
Easy to understand because we are familiar with/trust the lead farmers
76.3
Providing intensive support
69.4
Ability to work together as a community
64.2
Increased quantity of crops this farming season
58.1
Improved family welfare
55.3
Adoption of more GAPs technologies
52.7
Increased household income and standard of living
49.1
Acquisition of additional farmland
46.0
Enhanced education and level of farmers’ socialisation with others
42.2
**Multiple Responses; Source: Field survey, 2017
Table 3. Interventions employed in the study area.
Shika Village (100)
Bassawa Village (with-SMS group)
GAPs technologies training
GAPs technologies training
Four (4) Extension visits
SMS text reminders fortnightly
several issues relating to the effectiveness of
participatory extension delivery in the area and GAPs
training were discussed. Smallholders revealed that
GAPs Technologies Training was very effective and
beneficial to them. Specifically, participants were
asked to mention benefits of agricultural extension
services, particularly those derived from the farmer
participatory training on GAPs technologies either
directly from the researcher or from lead farmers to
the trainees. A number of key factors emerged. The
benefits of GAPs training listed by smallholder
farmers include:
Impact of Extension Visit and SMS Text
Reminders on Agricultural Technology
During the second visit to the study area, farmers
(Bassawa village) received five extension visits and
Short Message Service (SMS) fortnightly from the
researchers. In order to establish whether the
extension visits and SMS text messages sent to
farmers in Bassawa village had strong benefits, in
addition to the GAPs technologies training.
Therefore, analysis was undertaken between farmers
who had received the training only (Shika village) and
those who had received the GAPs training but also
had received an extension visit and SMS text
reminders (Bassawa village). The positively
significant rank of extension visits made to the farms
of the with-SMS group (Bassawa village) by the
researchers as reported in the methodology had a
positive and significant impact (P<0.001**). This
suggested that extension visits conducted after the
GAPs training to the farmland of the farmers
(Bassawa village) had positive and significant impact.
The findings imply that regular visit of extension
workers may enhance the rate of adoption of
improved technologies by smallholder farmers.
According to the findings in Table 4 all aspect of the
intervention had positive and significant impact on
GAPs technologies adoption, for example, the results
of this revealed that (GAPs participatory training,
SMS reminders and extension visit) triggered the
adoption among the smallholder farmers in the study
area. The findings imply that no single intervention
could successfully influence GAPs adoption in the
study area. This intervention also severs as
motivation for the decision to adopt agricultural
technologies.
The results of the study showed that the

454. Int. J. Agric. Res. Sustain. Food Sufficiency
Table 4. Spearman rank test of the Impact of Extension Visit and
SMS Text Reminders on GAPs Technologies Adoption (Bassawa
n= 100).
Variables
Spearman Rank
P-value
Education level
0.453**
0.011
Age
0.302**
0.005
Farm size
0.389
0.063NS
GAP participatory training
0.053**
0.000
SMS Text Reminders
0.379**
0.000
Four (4) Extension visits
0.36
0.001**
Source: Survey 2017; P < 0.05 is significant
interventions employed by the researchers
encouraged the adoption of the GAPs technologies
via extension services by providing quality,
complementary, adequate and appropriate extension
services immediately after GAPs training which
enabled farmers to adopt and implement the
recommended technologies more easily. These
results revealed that agricultural technology
embodies a number of important characteristics that
may influence adoption decisions. It is unfortunate
however that the majority of the smallholders in rural
areas of Nigeria had not been able to obtain
technological information previously perhaps due to
poor extension service delivery, lack of social
amenities, lack of technical know-how and access to
communication medias. The findings imply that
regular visit of extension workers may enhance the
rate of adoption of agricultural technologies by
smallholder farmers.
Similarly, in order to measure the impact of
extension visits on GAPs technologies amongst with-
SMS farmers (Bassawa village), the evaluation
survey employed some parameter estimates to
measure the impact. These include; education, the
age of the household head, farm size, road network
and participation in the GAPs training. Table 4
reports the analysis of the findings on the impact of
access to extension visits on with-SMS farmers
(Bassawa village) on levels of GAPs adoption. The
results of the spearman rank test revealed that the
estimated parameters were statistically significant in
terms of having an impact on GAPs adoption levels.
This finding suggests that receiving four (4) extension
visits could influence farmers positively and improve
technologies adoption and crop productivity. The
results revealed that Bassawa farmers, who received
extension visits during the cropping season and SMS
text reminders followed technical training and
extension advice, adopted more than 78.5% of the
recommended GAP technologies. This result is
consistent with what was found regarding the impact
of GAP training on adoption (Table 4).
Nevertheless, a number of barriers to technology
adoption were identified by the without-SMS farmers.
Barriers identified by this study include; poor
information, lack of capital, the high cost of herbicides
and preference for conventional farming methods.
The findings also identified that the majority of
farmers use their mobile phones to call extension
workers from ADP and NAERLS for advice, as well
as people like traders and other farmers who are in
possession of agricultural related information.
The article has also presented the findings from the
semi-structured interviews conducted in the third
phase of the study which were used in conjunction
with the surveyto aid better interpretation of the
results. The interviews identified some impacts of the
GAP training and action plan amongst the sample
farmers as well as some impacts associated with the
SMS text reminders. The research further identified
drivers or reasons behind with-SMS farmers' decision
to adopt GAP technologies and highlighted some
constraints facing smallholder farmers' access to
markets in the study area.
There was a rapid increase (85%) in the level of
adopted of improved technologies after the farmer
participatory training among the respondents
compared to pre-training (49.5%). There was a
strong positive correlation (r = 0.001**, p<0.05)
between participatory training sessions and adoption
of GAP. The use of participatory GAPs training,
extension visits tom farmland and SMS text

Sennuga et al. 456
Figure 3 (a-b). Barriers to adoption of GAP technologies by farmers in the study Area
Source: Survey; Shika n=100, Bassawa n=100; Scale: 100%
Table 5. Chi-squared analysis between the communities in relation to extension and
government policy on agriculture.
Shika
Bassawa
Chi-squared
Df
P-value
Yes
No
Yes
No
Very Poor Government Policy on
Agriculture
89
11
78
22
46.39
5
0.001**
Source: Survey; Shika n = 100, Bassawa n = 100; P < 0.001 is significant
Reminders have shown to influence farmers'
decisions to take up recommended GAP
technologies.
Barriers to Adoption of GAP Technologies in the
Study Area
Smallholder farmers from Shika and Bassawa were
requested to state the reasons why they do not adopt
GAP technologies. Farmers highlighted the barriers
to adoption and also ranked them in the order of
importance (Figure 3, a - b). They unanimously
ranked financial constraints as the major barrier to
implementation, followed by high costs of fertilizers
and extreme poverty level in the study area. High
illiteracy levels of members, very poor government
policy in agriculture and the high cost of labour,
herbicides and improved seeds, and addiction to the
traditional method of farming were ranked 4th, 5th, 6th,
7th and 8th respectively (Figure 3, a - b). Other
barriers cited by smallholders included adulteration of
farm input in the markets, inadequate farmlands, lack
of farm machinery to assist members, low awareness
level, farmers no longer trusting extension agents
and fear of failure of improved technology were also
noted. Moreover, as shown in Table 5, the Chi-
squares analysis revealed that there is a statistically
significant difference between the communities in
relation to extension experience and government
policy on agriculture. The two factors were
statistically significant at <0.001level (Table 5).
However, other factors were not statistically

457. Int. J. Agric. Res. Sustain. Food Sufficiency
significant. This shows that Bassawa community is
more open to extension services and more
influenced by the project.
CONCLUSION
This article investigated the level of awareness and
adoption of appropriate GAPs among smallholders
before and after the GAPs training in the study area.
The study main finding is that the level of awareness
of improved agricultural technologies was low among
smallholder before the GAPs training. However,
immediately after the training was conducted in the
area, the study revealed that level of adoption was
very high. The chi-square test results revealed that
13 GAPs technologies were statistically significant at
P<0.05 level indicating high level of adoption and
acceptance of the GAPs technologies by smallholder
farmers. The study also found that extension visits
and SMS text reminders interventions encouraged
farmers and had positive impact on GAPs adoption.
In this study, smallholders unanimously ranked
financial constraints, high cost of fertilizers and
addiction to traditional method of farming as the
major barrier to adoption in the study area.
RECOMMENDATIONS
The study recommends that Federal Ministry of
Agriculture and Rural Development, should
understand what knowledge and attitude
smallholders have in relation to these Good
Agricultural Practices technologies and how the
technologies are introduced to the farmers.
Subsequently, agricultural policy can streamline
these technologies to the meet specific conditions of
the rural communities for more rapid adoption and
sustainability. In the same vein, the effectiveness of
GAPs training/workshop helped towards influencing
farmers’ decisions to adopt the given technologies.
Thus, there is a clear indication of need for
empowerment of Nigerian Agricultural extension
system in diverse ways first, by training smallholders
both in conventional (i.e. fields demonstration and
training program) and non-conventional (modern
ICTs) techniques and carefully choosing the right
training methods and period convenient for the
farmers. Second, Government should endeavor to
strengthen the Agricultural Development Project
(ADP) extension agents and material resources of
local and national extension system. Finally, Federal
Government should invest in improved technologies
considered to be cost effective with a clear impact on
the adoption decisions of smallholders.
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