ABSTRACT

The study assessed the factors influencing bitter leaf production among female farmers in Orlu Agricultural Zone of lmo state, Nigeria. The specific objectives that guided the study included to: describe the socio economic characteristics of the respondents, identify the cropping system of bitter leaf by the respondents, ascertain the respondents' level of preferences of common vegetable in the study area, identify the cultural importance of bitter leaf over fluted pumpkin, ascertain the perceived curative uses of bitter leaf and fluted pumpkin among the farming households, determine the social, nutritive, economic, cultural, and curative, value bitter leaf over other vegetables and identify factors influencing the production of bitter leaf in the study area. A multistage simple random sampling technique was used to realize a sample size of 120 respondents. Structured questionnaire was used for primary data collection. Data generated were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Results show that majority (80%) of the respondents was married and about 73.3% had an age range of 50-60 years. About 28% and 27% had their primary and secondary education uncompleted. A reasonable proportion (3 7%) had a household size of 5-6 persons and about 37.5% had 21- 30 years of farming experience. About 47% had a farm size of 0.4-0.5hectare of land and 47.6% had no contact with extension agents. About 80% belonged to cooperative societies and lack of extension technology packages on bitter leaf production, non-availability of agro-inputs and high infestation rate of pest and diseases were identified as factor influencing the production of bitter leaf in the study area. While age (X1) =2.43**, gender (X2) = 5.2***, education (X3) 227**, income (X4 ) = 2.42** and household size (X5) =2.88**respectively were identified as factors positively inf4luencing the preference of better leaf in the study area. The study recommends that the ADP and research institutions in the state should endeavors to make available to the female farmers technology packages for the production of vegetables, since it is women- based crops mostly in the study area.