Determinants of Wellbeing among Agroforestry Farmers in Edo State, Nigeria

Abstract

A fundamental concern of any government is the wellbeing of its citizens. Therefore, this study seeks to investigate the determinants of wellbeing among agroforestry farmers in Edo state, Nigeria. Respondents were selected using a multi-stage sampling procedure to select three forest enclaves based on the number of agroforestry farmers in the enclaves. These enclaves are Sakponba, Ubiaja and Agbede using 50%, 33%and 17% respectively, this percentage was based on the population of the enclave dwellers in each using simple random sampling, and a total of 120 respondents was obtained; data were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics such as multinomial logit and multiple regression. The result reveals that the mean age of the farmers was 45.6years. Majority (85.8 %) were male and 78.3% were married. The mean household size was 5 persons, with 54.2% having household size of between 4 and 6 persons. Majority (84.2%) had formal education. Also, 65.8% had agroforestry farming as primary occupation, with source of income as main reason for involvement in agroforestry and average farm size of 8.4 hectares. Results of multiple regression analysis for relationship between contribution of the independent variable and farmers’ wellbeing reveals a positive and significant relationship between farmers’ level of income; economic and material wellbeing are not signific ant at any alpha level, social wellbeing (r = 0.217, P ≤ 0.10) and psychological wellbeing (r = 0.283, P ≤0.05), respectively. The positive and significant relationship implies that the higher the farmers’ income level, the higher the economic, social and psychological wellbeing of the farmers. The study therefore, recommends that agroforestry support services like incentives, agricultural inputs and provision of soft loans should be provided by government and various NGOs to improve farmers’ income.
 Keywords: Determinants, Agroforestry, Wellbeing, Farmers, Edo State