Factors determining adoption of bean quality improvement practices by cocoa farmers in Cross River State, Nigeria
Published Online: Mar 30, 2021
Page range: 32 - 42
Received: Apr 16, 2019
Accepted: Mar 04, 2021
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/ats-2021-0004
Keywords
© 2021 Abdulrazak Kamal Daudu et al., published by Sciendo
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Persistent drop in quality of Nigerian cocoa exported to the international communities portends a grave danger to the economy of the country. This study investigates factors determining adoption of bean quality improvement practices by cocoa farmers in Cross River State, Nigeria. Using a two-stage random sampling technique to select 336 farmers from communities with high production, data were collected with a structured questionnaire and subjected to factor analysis and descriptive statistical procedures. The data revealed that majority of the respondents (66.1%) were male with mean age of 48 years, 78.6% were formally educated whereas 31.0% had a quarterly contact with extension agents. Most of the respondents (98.2%) had high perception on practices considered as being adequate for improving the quality of cocoa beans. There was a positive and significant relationship between perception on cocoa bean quality and adoption of bean quality improvement practices (r = 0.142 and