Farmer’s Knowledge, Practices and Exposure with Pesticide Usage in Selected Farm Settlements in Kwara State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study investigated farmer’s knowledge, practices and exposure with pesticide usage in selected farm settlements in Kwara state, Nigeria. Three hundred and sixty-three respondents were sampled from two senatorial districts and a local government each, whose residents were predominantly farmers were targeted.  Data collected was analyzed using frequency count, percentage and Pearson correlation. It is revealed that more male 278 (76.6%) respondent farmers participated in the study than their female 85 (23%) counterparts. High level of illiteracy 150 (41.3%) was discovered amongst the farmers who relied upon different sources of information about safe pesticide mixing, storage, and application with Pearson correlation coefficient that signifies a positive linear correlation at p < 0.01 and P < 0.05 level of significance (2-tailed). Since the results show a very high statistical significance of p < 0.05 (2-tails), the hypothesis test that there is no significant relationship between sources of information and pesticide usage by farmers is rejected. This simply means that the respondents did really rely on different sources of information on pesticide usage. The findings also revealed that the farmers employ unhealthy and poor practices due to high level of illiteracy by not following the recommendations regarding the safe usage of pesticides which makes them susceptible to pesticide exposure. It is therefore concluded that there is significant relationship between farmer’s practices in the usage of pesticides and their level of exposure to pesticides. It is recommended that farmers should be enlightened more about the toxic effects of pesticide exposure as well as self-protective literacy on pesticide application in other to protect themselves from pesticide exposure-associated degenerative diseases.