88 Joseph Omotoso Ajayi
case for women. Moreover, the large number of both married male and female
cassava farmers coupled with large household sizes for both categories
afforded the respondents the opportunity of getting family labour to be used.
The distribution of level of education as also shown in Table 1 reveals that
there were more educated male cassava farmers than female cassava farmers,
particularly at primary and secondary school levels. However, female cassava
farmers had a little more tertiary education and much more other forms of
education than their male counterparts. These other forms of education
included adult education, continuous education, trade education and religious
education. It implies therefore, that more male farmers could use their
education advantage to learn and adopt innovative farm techniques including
modern techniques on climate change adaptation and management while the
few female farmers that had more advanced education than the male, would be
more able to learn and adopt really advanced farm techniques. Ajayi (2015)
had opined that a higher level of education of cassava farmers would influence
their adoption.
Table 1. Gender-based socioeconomic characteristics of cassava farmers
in the study areaCharacteristics Male cassava famers Female cassava farmers
Age of
respondentsyears Frequency Percentage
(%)Frequency Percentage
(%)
<30 7 3.88 2 1.11
31 - 40 15 8.33 34 18.89
41 - 50 30 16.67 56 31.11
51 - 60 82 45.56 69 38.33
60 46 25.56 19 10.56
Marital Status of respondents
Single 17 9.44 0 0
Married 141 78.33 129 71.67
Divorced 5 2.78 23 12.78
Separated 8 4.45 18 10.00
Widowed 9 5.00 10 5.55
Household size
<5 83 46.11 113 62.78
6 to 10 48 26.67 31 17.22
10 49 27.22 36 20
Education
No formal education 21 11.67 18 10
Primary school education 107 59.44 89 49.44
Secondary school education 25 13.89 15 8.33
Tertiary education 10 5.56 12 6.67
others 17 9.44 46 25.56
Source: Computed from field survey, 2015.