Safety procedure and agrochemicals use among arable crop farmers in Ido local government area of Oyo State, Nigeria

Exposure of agrochemicals to arable crop farmers pose a continuous health hazard on them, especially when considering agricultural working environment. The study, therefore, examined the agrochemical knowledge and safety procedure among arable crop farmers in Ido local government area of Oyo state. Multi-stage sampling was used to select 90 farmers in the study area. Data were obtained using structured interview schedule and described statistically with Chi-Square and PPMC for the hypotheses. The study revealed that 72.8% of the respondents were male, 69.1% of the respondents were married, and 35.8% fell within the age range of 40-49 years. Educational level shows that 16.0% had no formal education and 39.5% had tertiary. Also, majority (58.0%) had Household size between the ranges of 1-5, Years of experience show that 53.1% had years of experience of between ranges of 1-10 years while 46.9% of the respondents cultivated below 4 hectare of land. The result also revealed that majority of the respondents mostly used fertilizers (88.9%), herbicides (85.2%) pesticides (75.3%) and fungicides (60.5%). Also, open market was identified by respondents as a major source of agrochemical in the study area. It was further revealed that the frequency of use of agrochemical was high and safety procedure was also high. Analysis of hypothesis showed that marital status, education was significantly influenced the respondents knowledge of safety procedures. Also, sources of agrochemical significantly related to the respondents knowledge of safety procedure. It is therefore recommended that government and other stakeholders should allow only authorized sources agrochemical in order to reduced unauthorized sources to minimal level, so as to manage and monitor the use and safety procedures compliance.