Inorganic fertilizer use among agroforestry and non-agroforestry practicing farmers in South West Cameroon: A comparative assessment and policy ramifications

Abstract

Continuous and excessive use of inorganic fertilizers by farmers across the world is causing more harm than good to croplands. This is because most of these inorganic fertilizers are toxic, which in essence defeats the very purpose for which they are produced. This paper sought to comparatively assess the use of inorganic fertilizer among agroforestry and non-agroforestry practicing farmers in south west Cameroon. Data was collected from both primary and secondary sources, and analyzed using appropriate descriptive and inferential statistics. Findings revealed that, more non-agroforestry practicing farmers were using inorganic fertilizer, in large quantities, and frequently, when compared to their agroforestry practicing counterparts. From logistic regression predictions, it was found that, variables such as level of education, cultivation of cash crops, number of farms, farm size, age, and farm experience had an inverse causal relationship (p<0.05) with agroforestry practicing farmers' use of inorganic fertilizer, and a direct causal relationship (p<0.05) with non-agroforestry practicing farmers' use of inorganic fertilizer. Meanwhile, variables such as income level, household size, cultivation of food crops, cultivation of market gardening crops, membership in farming group, access to extension services, and access to markets had a direct causal relationship (p<0.05) with the use of inorganic fertilizer for both agroforestry and non-agroforestry practicing farmers. It was equally found that, a direct causal relationship (p<0.05) exist between the non-practice of agroforestry and the use of inorganic fertilizer, while an inverse causal relationship (p<0.05) exist between the practice of agroforestry and the use of inorganic fertilizer. This indicates that the practice of agroforestry has huge potentials to contribute towards limiting the use of inorganic fertilizers by farmers. On the basis of these findings, it is recommended that policy makers pay more attention to agro-ecological practices like agroforestry in order to limit the use of inorganic fertilizer by farmers.