Environmental Degradation And Mitigation Response By Farmers In Danko/Wasagu Lga Of Kebbi State Nigeria

The paper assessed farmer’s mitigating practices to land degradation in Danko/Wasagu Local Government Area (LGA) of Kebbi State. Four (4) districts were randomly selected out of eight (8) districts that made up the LGA. They included Kainya, Ribah, Waji, and Wasagu. Random sampling technique was employed to select 20 farmers from each of the four (4) districts giving a sample size of 80 farmers. Data were collected using structured questionnaire and analyzed using descriptive statistics and logit regression model. Result showed that 43% of the respondents experienced slightly severe degradation on their farmlands while 13% witnessed severe degradation. However, the study found that clearing and burning of shrubs on farms and planting of sole cereals were the major causes of land degradation (28%); and grazing by animals (25%). The logit regression model shows that water channels, level of education, planting of trees, mulching and land tenure arrangement had positive coefficients. Conversely, coefficients of farm size, family size and cover crops had inverse influence as practices to the mitigation of land degradation. The marginal effects of the independent variables on the dependent variable revealed that on the average, a 1 percent increase in the creation of water channels for example, leads to a 0.77 percent increase in the probability of applying land degradation measures in the study area, holding all else constant. To preserve the farm lands, the identified causes of land degradation should be remedied.