EFFECT OF LAND FRAGMENTATION ON FARMING INCOME IN TWO LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREAS OF EKITI STATE

 ABSTRACT

Land has been seen as the composition of all naturally occurring resources whose supply is inherently fixed while, fragmentation of land has been argued as the scattering of land through which single farm consist of numerous spatially separated plots.Past studies and literature has shown that fragmentation is common among small scale farming and affecting farming outputs. Evidence abounds in past works in agricultural development that multiple use of land has been generally influenced by availability of land for agricultural purposes, proximity of the land to market and farm inputs, financial gains and demand. Hence, this study examined the effect of land fragmentation on small farming household income using Ikole and Oye Local

government areas of Ekiti State as a case study. The objectives are as follows; to examine farming plots available for agricultural purposes, estimate causes and effects of fragmented farm land on farming operations and factors affecting scattered/fragmented (individual) farm. A multi-stage stratified random sampling technique was employed to collect data from 100 respondents out which 80 data were useful for subsequent analysis. Information was collected through structured questionnaire on respondents' socio-economic variables and other factors influencing land fragmentation and farming outputs. Results revealed that the modal age range of the respondents is 41-50 years. Mean household head age is 48 years with standard deviation of 8.67. Majority of the respondents had post-secondary edu~alion are in modal class of 37.5%.Results also indicate that 60.0% of the respondents fall between house hold sizes 4-10 with mean of 8.36. The results also revealed that in the lower category of farm size had higher incomes. Farmers that had 2 and 3 multiple lands for farming are in the majority (78.7%). Thus, this evidence revealed that fragmentation had effect of small farms outputs and income. The small farmers that had multiple farms had a higher income. Multiple regression results revealed that six farmer-level factors are significant variables in influencing land fragmentation. Years of education are one of the important variable influencing farmers' accessibility to the use of multiple lands for agricultural activities.

Keywords: Land tenure,cfragmented land,icncome, multiple regressiomn, Ekiti State, Nigeria