Sustainable Farming Practices: Knowledge and Practices of Smallholder Farmers in Bamenda Highlands, Cameroon

Abstract

Background: Climate change inflicts negative consequences on food production especially on smallholder farms needed to achieve food security. Sustainable farming techniques seem to be the bridge between climate change and food security.
 Aims: To evaluate knowledge and practices of sustainable agriculture within smallholder farmers in the Bamenda Highlands, by identifying methods of pest and disease control, soil preservation options, and their different tillage practices, i.e., conventional versus sustainable practices.
 Study Design: Using a questionnaire survey.
 Place of Study: Bamenda Highlands, Cameroon.
 Methodology: A sample of 175 smallholder farmers (25 from each of the seven administrative divisions) were questioned about their tillage, soil preservation, crop protection, and knowledge of sustainable farming practices. Data collected were analysed and summarised to obtain frequencies and percentages. Pearson Product Moment Correlation (PPMC) was used to test for significant relationships between the pairs of variables (age, level of formal education, sex, some tillage and soil preservation practices).
 Results: Out of the 161 farmers who returned the answered questionnaire, 111(68.9%) agreed to have knowledge of sustainable farming but yet 158(98.1%) were still involved with conventional unsustainable practices such as tillage with the formation ridges, and 150(93.2%) used mineral fertilizers and pesticides. Crop rotation 102(64.2%), intercropping 110(68.3%), and legume integration 124(78.0%) were the most used sustainable farming practices. Sex (r=0.419, P=0.000), age (r=0.450, P=0.000), level of education (r=0.430, P=0.000), no till (r=0.19, P=0.016), crop rotation (r=0.158, P=0.040), and intercropping (r=0.227, P=0.045) all showed significant positive relationships with knowledge of sustainable farming at α=0.05.
 Conclusions: Sufficient knowledge and capacity development on sustainable farming may decrease usage of unsustainable farming practices, hence improving the adoption of sustainable farming practices.