Review On Land Degradation and Its Management (Published)
Land is the essential component which provides us food, shelter, and fiber. It is non-renewable resource which is degrading day to day. The present review focuses on effect of land degradation on agriculture and environment; and how we can manage our lands from further degradation. Agriculture is an important sector of economy and plays a significant role like GDP share, foreign exchange earnings, and employment. Land degradation is an environmental process in which biological, economical, and quality of land is lost due to alteration in chemical, physical, and biological properties. Factors like climatic, natural, and anthropogenic deteriorate the quality of land and degraded it for agricultural use. Agriculture sector is directly linked with land while most of the agriculture land is degraded by some factors. The most frequent causes of degradation are poor farming practices, inappropriate irrigation, overgrazing, urban sprawl, commercial development, and land clearance. Due to rapid changes in climatic conditions, deforestation, desertification, erosion, salinization, water logging, and organic matter depletion lead to land degradation. For restoration of land, it is important to minimize these activities and properly managed all factors. We can manage our land by ground covers, alternate fuels, timber replantation, and dams and by making the policies. Improvement and reclamation of degraded lands the domestic structure must be integrated in all related areas which gives direction for asset in sustainable land management and stimulating community response towards sustainable land management. Furthermore, organic agriculture may be an alternative to save our land from degradation.
Keywords: Agriculture, Degradation, Environment, Land, Management
Influence of Characteristics and Perception on Usage of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) By Selected Extension Agents in Northern Nigeria (Published)
This paper presents the results of investigation into the influence of the perception of Village Extension Agents (VEAs)’ on usage of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in three selected States Agricultural Development Projects (ADPs) of Nigeria. Two hundred and four (204) VEAs were sampled as respondents for the study. With aid of Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) the data were analyzed and the descriptive statistics were used to present the results. Results of Multiple Linear Regression analysis revealed that usage of ICT was statistically and positively significant on: income (0.039*), sex (0.007**), accessibility to ICT (0.000***) and perception on custom/tradition (0.021*) and perception on availability of infrastructural facilities (0.047*). These variables, by implication, are factors that influenced the usage of ICT by the VEAs in the study areas.
Keywords: Agriculture, Perception, extension, extension agents, technologies and communication