Adoption level on Organic Farming Practices by Fluted Pumpkin Vegetable Farmers in Enugu State, Nigeria

the study investigated the adoption of organic farming practices by fluted pumpkin vegetable farmers in Enugu state, Nigeria. Multistage sampling procedure was used to select 84 fluted pumpkin farmers, and data were collected through structured questionnaires that passed through Cronbach’s Alpha test . Data collected were analyzed using SPSS software and presented in mean, adoption index, percentages and frequency distributions. Findings indicated that majority (65.5%) of fluted pumpkin farmers regularly acquire information about organic practices through fellow farmers. A higher proportion (70.2%) and (61.9%) of the respondents affirmed that animal manure and farmyard manure practices were some of the organic farming practices disseminated in the zone. The adoption index for all the different organic farming practices examined was 0.516, but animal manure (M=3.94) was highly used. Result also revealed that production/supply constraints, economic/market constraints, institutional/technical constraints and environmental constraints affected adoption of organic farming practices. Furthermore, promoting government policy on organic farming (M=1.58; SD=0.564), increasing extension service deliveries on organic farming (M=1.55; SD=0.589) and establishing organic producing companies to supply adequate inputs (M=1.48; SD=0.564) were the major strategies suggested by farmers that will improve the adoption of organic farming on fluted pumpkin vegetable production. Therefore, government, through the ministry of agriculture should train extension agents and fluted pumpkin vegetable farmers on effective application of organic manures on crops so as to maximize yield. Also, government should bring up policies that would promote production, marketing and consumption of organically produced fluted pumpkin vegetables.