Abstract

Elemasho MK, Alfred SDY, Aneke CC, Chugali AJC and Ajiboye O

The study was conducted to determine the factors affecting adoption of post-harvest technologies of
selected food crops in Rivers State, Nigeria. A multistage snow-ball procedure was used to sample 135
selected food crops farmers in the State. A well structured questionnaire was used to obtain information
from the respondents and analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistical tools. The results
revealed that, majority (85.9%) of the respondents were females, mostly married (84.4%), with house-hold
sizes between 5-9 persons (54.8%). Respondents mean age was 41.0 years, with mean of 15.9 years’ farming
experience co-farmer was the most commonly used sources of information on post-harvest technologies.
Factors determined to be affecting the adoption of selected post-harvest technologies in the study area
were, socio-economic characteristics of the respondents and sources of information on post-harvest
technologies. All socio-economic characteristics measured were significantly related to adoption level with
P – value less than 0.05. The technologies in the package were not introduced to the farmers (100%) and the
level of adoption was poor (100%). The respondents’ sources of information influenced their adoption of
post-harvest technologies with the p- value less than 0.05. The study recommended that available postharvest technologies should be made known to all users.