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and machinery. Livestock and ishery sub-sectors also lack adequate
availability of inputs such as feeds and veterinary inputs. Lack of
access to inancial services (less than 10 percent of rural household
use formal banking and insurance services) limits the farmers’ ability
to obtain inputs and exploit the opportunities offered by a huge and
rapidly growing domestic market. Many markets in Katsina state are
temporally or locally saturated with horticultural produce that spoils
due to lack of storage and processing facilities as well as dificul-
ties in moving produce to the market on the impassable rural roads.
Awareness and implementation of proven approaches to sustainable
land management are low. In short, much can be improved, World
Bank (2007 in Mohammed, 2013).

Description of the Study Area

Katsina State was created on 23rd September, 1987 from the for-
mer Kaduna State. The state is one of the thirty six (36) states of
the Federal Republic of Nigeria, bordered with Zamfara State in the
western part, Kaduna State in the southern, Kano and Jigawa States
in the east and Niger Republic in the northern part. The research
was conducted in Katsina state which comprised of three agricultural
zones namely Zone I (Ajiwa, Katsina zone consists of 15 LGAs),
Zone II (Funtua Zone consists of 8 LGAs) and Zone III (Dutsin-ma
Zone consisting of 11 LGAs) (KTARDA, 2003). The state as part
of Nigeria territory lies between latitude 11002” and 13003”N, and
longitude 6005” and 9003”E. It covers an area of about 22,983km2
with a population of 5,801,584 people from which 2,948,279 were
male while 2,853,305 were female. Katsina State being agrarian has
about 80% of its population living in rural areas fully engaged in
agricultural production (Mohammed, 2013). The people comprised
of Hausa, Fulani, Kanuri, Yoruba, Igbo and many Nigerians with
migrants from neighbouring countries like Niger republic. Weather

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