ANALYSIS OF ADOPTION OF IMPROVED COWPEA PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGY IN MAFA LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF BORNO STATE, NIGERIA

The study analysed the adoption of improved cowpea production technology in Borno State, Nigeria. Multi-stage random sampling technique was used to select 180 respondents. The study revealed that 30% of the respondents were in their active age category of between 31-40 years. Majority (84.40%) of the respondents was married and about 48% had family size of between 6 to 10 persons per household. Also, majority (66.6%) of the respondents had more than 15 years’ experience in cowpea production. Awareness level of the respondents was 75% and above for all cowpea technologies, except for chemical weeds control and insecticides use. Adoption level of technologies with less cost content was relatively high; 68% to 96% compared to other technologies that have high input content. The coefficient of rank correlation analysis of the cowpea recommended technologies revealed the calculated value (r = 0.850) which was greater than the Tabulated value (r = 0.700); indicating that the correlation was insignificant between the ranks of awareness and those of adoption of the recommended technologies in the study area. Respondents were constrained by high cost of inputs, lack of funds and incidence of striga infestation. The study recommended that enabling environment should be established for public-private agricultural supplies in order to serve as an outlet for the procurement and supply of all categories of farm inputs at the right time and at subsidized rates to genuine farmers.