Gender involvement in crop production activities in Abuja, Nigeria Ajah J.*, Okolochukwu C. C.** * Department of Agricultural Economics/Extension, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Abuja, Nigeria ** Agricultural and Rural Productivity Department, National Productivity Centre, Abuja, Headquarters, Nigeria Online published on 25 October, 2016. Abstract The study examined gender involvement in crop production activities in Abuja, Nigeria. The main objective is to determine if significant difference exists in gender involvement in farm operations and to identify factors influencing their involvements. A multi-stage sampling procedure was used to select respondents while questionnaires were used for data collection. A total of 386 small-scale farmers (197 males and 189 females) were randomly interviewed. Data were analysed using a two-way mixed analysis of variance. Results indicated that there was significant difference (p <.05) in gender involvement in farm operations implying that the gender of a farmer affected his/her involvement in some farm operations. Mean separation showed that the male farmers were significantly more involved in bush clearing, fertilizer application, site selection and chemical applications compared to their female counterparts who were significantly (p <.05) more involved in harvesting. On the contrary, there was no significant (p >.05) difference in gender involvement in raking/burning, land tillage, planting, thinning/supplying and manual weeding. The major socio-cultural factor influencing gender involvement in crop production activities was tradition while the least factor was their part-time occupations. Based on findings, the study concluded that there was a significant difference in gender involvement in some farm operations. Top Keywords Gender, farm operations, crop production, socio-cultural factors, male and female. Top |