Land Acquisition and Types of Crops Cultivated by Farmers in Ayedaade Local Government Area, Osun State, Nigeria

The research was carried out to assess the problems associated with land acquisition and their effect on the type of crops cultivated. Multistage sampling technique was used for selecting 120 farmers for the study. Results showed that the mean age of the farmers was 50.5 years, 76.7% were male and 66.7% married. Also, 64.2% had one form of education or the other with 65.0% having a farm size of less than 2.0ha and 48.3% having farming experience of 1-10years. Methods of land acquisition were mainly through inheritance (42.5%) and purchase (28.3%) with 76.7% cultivating arable crops like cassava and/or maize. Furthermore, (45.8%) of this were as intercrop. Access to market (43.3%) and credit facilities/needed finance (24.2%) influence the choice of crops cultivated. Chi-square analysis showed significant association (p<0.05) between method of land acquisition and education (p=0.00), age (p=0.02). Also there was significant relationship between method of land acquisition and types of crop cultivated (p=0.00). Most respondents were small scale farmers and could not increase their farm size due to financial constraints. Size of farm land was found to influence type of crop cultivated. Thus, the study recommends that farmers should be encouraged to cultivate bigger farm size and government should revisit the land tenure system and land use act to encourage acquisition of more land for agricultural activities.