Abstract

Weed is one the major challenges faced by farmers in cassava production. This has lead to development of new weed management technologies, but the adoption of these technologies by farmers has been an issue in research. Hence, researchers sought to understand related factors that influence farmers’ decision on adoption of agricultural technologiesin weed management control. Thus, the interest of this study is to evaluate the relative impact of psychological factors (farmers’ perceptual belief, learning attitude, self-determination, motivation) and field school programme on farmers’ adoption decision on weed management technologies by adopting a descriptive research design. Purposive sampling technique was used in selecting 504 respondents from the sampled 8 sites of Farmers’ Field School programme established in four LGAs in Abia State. Questionnaire instruments were used to collate data and analysis was done using Pearson- Product Moment Correlation and Multiple Regression. Findings showed that the five independent variables (farmers’ perceptual belief, learning attitude, self-determination, motivation and farmers’ field school programme) had significant correlation with the dependent variable (weed management technology adoption). Also, the predictor variables correlated positively with weed management technology adoption amongst cassava farmers in Abia State. In view of these findings, the researchers conclude that farmer’s intention to accept new weed management technologies are being influenced by some psychological factors and the extension programme being used. This research recommends that these psychological parameters should be incorporated into the farmers’ field school training packages for an effective productivity as this determine to a greater extent the acceptance level of new technologies towards weed management.