Involvement in non-farm activities and occurrence of domestic conflicts among rural farmers in Edo State, Nigeria

As part of effort to promote rural dwellers’ wellbeing, several studies had been conducted to examine the causes and resolution of domestic conflicts among farmers but less attention is paid to their involvement in non-farm activities as a strategy to mitigate domestic conflicts, particularly in Edo State, Nigeria. The study therefore assessed male and female rural farmers’ involvement in non-farm activities in Edo State with a view to unveiling the effects on occurrence of domestic conflicts. Specifically, it analysed the benefits derived in nonfarm activities as well as establishing relationship between their involvement in non-farm activities and frequency of occurrence of domestic conflicts among male and female farmers. Multi-stage sampling procedure was used to select 130 respondents (65 males and 65 females) in the same household using interview schedule. Data on socioeconomic characteristics, non-farm activities performed and frequency of occurrence of domestic conflicts were described with the use of mean, standard deviation, frequency and percentages while Pearsons’ Product Moment Correlation was used to determine the relationship that exists between benefits derived due to their involvement in non-farm activities and frequency of occurrence of domestic conflicts. Results show that 63.1% and 66.2% of male and female were between the ages of 20 and 40 years while only 9.2% of male and 38.5% of female having no formal education. Non farm activities such as wood carving (Χ=2.94±0.57), building/construction ( Χ=2.92±0.48) and Carpentry/ furniture works ( Χ=2.83±0.83) were the major non-farm activities with high involvement among male while petty trading (Χ=2.99±0.83), hairdressing (Χ=3.24±0.94) and tailoring ( Χ=2.73±0.88) recorded high involvement level among their female counterparts. Income generation (Χ=3.29±0.64) and creation of self employment (Χ=3.24±0.27) were among the benefits derived for their involvement. A negative and significant correlation existed between farmers’ involvement in non-farm activities and frequency of occurrence of domestic conflicts (r= -0.51; p≤0.01).It was concluded that involvement in non farm activities among rural farmers is central to resolving domestic conflicts. It is therefore, recommended that farmers in the rural areas should be encouraged to involve in non-farm activities by social and development workers as this will be a strategy in building peace within a community.