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Analysis of Farmer Field School as an Extension Approach to Cocoa Production in Osun State, Nigeria

The study analyzed Farmer Field School (FFS) as an extension approach to cocoa production in Osun State, Nigeria. Data were gathered through structured interview schedule from 248 cocoa farmers participating in FFS, Also information was elicited from the 30 facilitators that are involved in the FFS using structured questionnaire. Data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistical tools such as frequency counts, percentage, mean and standard deviation while inferential statistics such as correlation and chi square were used to test the hypotheses set. Results of the study show that the mean age of cocoa farmers participating in FFS in the study area was 53.3 years, majority (79.4%) of them were males, they spent an average of 10.9 years in formal school, the mean of years of experience in cocoa production was 7.5. Also, the mean age of the FFS facilitators was 47.8 years; they were all specialized in agricultural related areas; all of them were males, married and Yoruba. Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) showed that the respondents can actually control many of the factors influencing their harvest, apart from praying for good harvest. There were positive and significant relationship between improvement in cocoa management practices and respondents' age (r= 0.322; P 0.05); household size(r= 0.392; P 0.01); years of formal education(r= 0.153; P 0.05); cosmopoliteness (r=0.311; P 0.05); cocoa land size (r=0.501; P 0.01); and farming experience (r= 0.503; P 0.01). Since improvement was noticed in the output of participating cocoa farmers, FFS is then recommended for other farm enterprises.