Multivariate Determinants of Farmer Attitudes towards Agro- innovations in Northern Nigeria, the Case of Bauchi State Smallholder Farmers

The study involves investigation of multivariate socio-economic determinants of smallholder farmer attitudes towards agro-innovation in Bauchi state. A total of 240 respondents were selected using stratified random sampling technique to ensure full coverage of the study area. Data were gathered using a pre-tested questionnaire and analysed using chi-square test to determine the attitude while standard deviation (mean ± standard error) was used to determine attitude levels of the respondents. Results revealed majority of the smallholder farmers in the study area (77% and 17%) had unfavourable and moderate attitudes respectively while only 6% were had favourable attitude to agro-innovation brought to them by extension workers. Results from the socio-economic inventory of the respondents confirmed the attitudes of the farmers, as it revealed that level of education, occupation, family size, background, farm size, irrigation potentiality and communication factors were low or poor among most farmers. Good training of extension workers on subject matter, effective supervision and evaluation of innovation transfer program, involvement of stakeholders in timely planning and execution of the program as well as, encouraging the farmers to form themselves into socio-economic groups, to enhance their knowledge and access to resources were recommended to mitigate the poor attitude of the farmers leading, to enhanced adoption of agro-innovation in the area.