Upland rice based intercropping system among farmers in selected villages in Ogun State in South West of Nigeria

Abstract

Rapid Rural Appraisals (RRA) were conducted among one hundred and fifty five farmers in rice growing areas of Obafemi/Owode and Ifo Local Government Areas of Ogun State in South-West of Nigeria to investigate farmers’ practices of growing rice in rice/cassava intercropping system in 2007. The farmers in these villages cultivated 2 to 4 farms with an average farm size of about 2 ha. Results from the RRA showed that the farmers have been growing rice for over 21 years. About 31% of the farmers grow WAB 189B-B-B-6-HB, 19% grow ITA 150 and I8% grow ITA 321 while 11% grow local variety ‘Ofada’. About 58% of the farmers practice intercropping and 41% of them intercrop rice with cassava. As 72% of the farmers introduced their cassava one week after the planting of rice and the most commonly used cassava variety is MS6. Also 10.9% of the farmers intercropped rice with vegetable as 40.6% intercropped the same rice with cassava.