Analysis of the Role of Women in Seed Security in Lamurde Local Government Area, Adamawa State, Nigeria.

Abstract

The study analyzed the role of women in seed security (seed availability and seed access) in Lamurde Local Government of Adamawa State, Nigeria. Multistage random sampling procedure was employed in the selection of the respondents. A total of 5 wards were randomly selected at the first stage out of the ten existing wards. In the second stage, two villages were selected from each ward. This therefore, brings the total villages used for this study to ten. The third stage was the selection of ten respondents from each of these ten villages, which gave a total of 100 respondents. Structured interview schedule was employed as means for data collection. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics.  The descriptive statistical tools used were frequencies and percentages, while the inferential statistical tool employed was Pearson Correlation. Major findings were that women play a very prominent role in preserving and propagating seed security; majority of the women had serious difficulty in accessing seed and that certified seed is not readily available to them; lack of capital was a major constraint to seed security; lack of adequate farm lands for crop cultivation was also a serious limiting factor. It was also found that there was a high and positive correlation between involvement of respondents and their accessibility to certified seed with ‘r’ value of 0.842. It was recommended, among others that concerned governments, agricultural policy makers and agricultural development agencies should come to the aid of the women in these areas of identified problems. This could be done through the removal of strong bank loan conditions and replacing them with favourable ones. Construction of good roads and establishment of government-approved certified seed distribution centres should be embarked upon.

Key words: Women, Seed Security, Lamurde, Adamawa, Nigeria.