Analysis of the use of Organic Manure in Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) Production in Ikole Local Government Area of Ekiti State

Abstract

This study analyzed the use of organic manure in tomato production in Ikole LGA of Ekiti State. Analytical tools such as descriptive statistics, budgetary analysis and multiple regressions were employed for this research. A two stage random sampling technique was used for the random selection of (5) towns and also random selection of (15) respondents from each of the towns making a total number of (75) respondents. In the study area, majority of the farmers with 53.3% were within the age bracket of 41 to 50 years also 84.0% of the respondents were males while females were just 16.0%. Tomato production in the study area was profitable with total revenue of N1, 125,000 and net revenue of N341, 000 and gross margin of N626, 000. Rate of return on investment was 43.49%, while Benefit Cost Ratio (BCR) was N1.43, indicating that for every naira spent the tomato farmers were making N1.43. From the regression analysis, age, farming experience, level of education, and farm size were all positive and significant with R² value of 0.694, implying that the regression model explained about 69.4% of the relationship between the dependent variable and the independent variable. The study also showed that, offensive odour ranked 1^st on the likert scale with a mean of 4.60 and was the most complained about constraint by the respondents followed by stress of composting which ranked 2^nd with the mean of 4.09 while reduced output was the least complained about constraint faced by the respondents and ranked 11^th with a mean of 2.12.This study showed that every tomato farmer in the study area was aware of the detrimental effects of soil nutrient depletion; hence, the use of organic manure in increasing soil nutrient availability which was perceived as very important by the respondents.