Assessment of Mechanization Application in Crop Production a Case Study of Ado Ekiti, Nigeria

The assessment of the level of mechanization of crop production in the farm settlement in Ado Ekiti was investigated and analysed. The work was carried out to advise government on how to encourage youth to be interested in crop production. Structured questionnaire was designed to extract information on factors that can make crop production attractive to the youth through mechanisation base on land clearing, ploughing, harrowing, ridging, planting, weeding, fertilizer application and harvesting. Other information also extracted are gender, age, marital status, crop grown, farm size and farming methods. The level at which each of the farm make use of various implement/machines such as tractor, harrow, ridger, planter and harvester was also investigated and analysed. The analysis revealed that 7.2%, 54.4%, 0% and 40.8% of the farmers interviewed had fully mechanized the following crop production steps ridging, pest control, harvesting and irrigation respectively. None of them had ventured into mechanizing harvesting stage. Therefore, the level of mechanisation in Ado Ekiti is low mainly due to the small size of farm land and mixed farming that pre-dominant in the area. Others factors responsible for low turnout of youth in mechanized farming are lack of infrastructure, marketing and financial credits facility.