జర్నల్ ఆఫ్ బయోడైవర్సిటీ & అంతరించిపోతున్న జాతులు

Our Farmsteads, Our Farmlands Conserve and Sustain Biodiversity than Your Mechanized Farming: Accounts of Indigenous Farmers in Ijero, Ekiti State, Nigeria

Abstract

Adebiyi Toyosi Oladosu, Bamidele Oluwafoise, Ademola Dada Adegboye, Alaba Rasaki Omonijo and Tolulope Olorunsola Ajayi 

The study is qualitative research that quantified the accounts of local and mechanized farmers on “biodiversity”, on sampled farmlands in Ijero, Ekiti State, Nigeria. Despite that indigenous people and local communities are recognized as key stakeholders in the implementation of strategic plan by Convention on Biological Diversity; and despite that national biodiversity report in Nigeria recognizes agriculture as one of the key reasons why biodiversity must be sustained and conserved, not many efforts have been geared toward reaching out to this category of stakeholder, hence, this research. This study sets out to ascertain the level of availability, means of conservation and sustainability of the biodiversity in a local community of Ijero Ekiti. A total of 30 farmers were randomly selected from 3 local farmlands (10 per farmland) of “Okoto”, “Salaro” and Oke-asa” with approximately area size of 65, 42 and 61 respectively. These local farmlands have existed for centuries and are communally farmed. Also, 30 farmers were purposively selected from 10 mechanized farms (3 per farmland) of oil palm farm, timber plantation, rice plantation, fish ponds, poultry, piggery etc. A structured questionnaire on Availability, Sustainability, and Conservation of Biodiversity for Farmers (ASCBF) containing list of commonly found plants and animals of vegetation forest where Ijero Ekiti belongs was administered on both local and mechanized farmers in guided interviews. This was considered the best method due to the literacy level of the local farmers. Six research questions were raised for the study and answered descriptively using frequency are percentages. Our main finding from the analyzed results is corroborated by the on-the-spot-assessments that sampled local farmlands retain arrays of species of plants and animals than the mechanized farmlands. Animal pathways, natural habitats of animals and availability of species of plants were all sighted on local farmlands. This is further evident as mechanized farmers practice mono-farming; hence, the needed interdependency in ecosystem is lost. We, therefore, recommend among others that, though the ever-growing human population is the reason for mechanized farming, however, provision of improved seedlings to local farmers and establishment of special agricultural intervention funds could widen their contributions to food supply while still sustaining and conserving biodiversity.