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
Agricultural Commodities and Economic Growth in Nigeria (Published)
This study investigates the determinants of macroeconomic variables that affect agricultural production in Nigeria. Time – series data, covering the period of 1986 -2016, United States reports, were used. Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression technique was fitted to the data. Result showed that corn output has a positive relationship with agricultural output. Millet, rice and palm oil also have positive relationships with total agricultural output. The individual test revealed that corn has no significant impact on agricultural output while millet has a significant impact on agricultural output within the period under study. Thus, this study recommends that there is need to improve on the agricultural practice level of farmers in Nigeria through extension education, so as to achieve food security and conserve the resource base. This should be the intensified and geared towards making farmers to become more aware and understand the consequences of use of more external inputs on their resource base, and the inherent benefits associated with the use of more internal inputs in food production. Improve agricultural production, processing and trade through increased access to resources such as land, technology (improved inputs) credit, and training.
Keywords: Farmers, Food Security, Land, Palmoil, Rice, corn, millet