**4. Assessment of rural-urban utilization of TM and OM**

This section discusses the results of the primary data analyzed on the use of TM and OM by farming households in Ekiti State. The focus of this section is the assessment of rural-urban utilization of TM and OM as against the assessment of access to OM facilities in the previous section.

### **4.1 Socio-economic characteristics of households**

Table 4 presents the test of significance of difference of means of rural and urban socioeconomic and demographic variables. The mean age of the farmers in Ado LGA was 51 years, while that of farmers in Irepodun/Ifelodun LGA was 59 years. Thus, farmers in Irepodun/Ifelodun LGA were older than those in Ado LGA. For both locations, however, it can be seen that most of the people engaging in farming activities were above 50 years old. Therefore, it could be concluded that farmers are aging in the study area and the need for sound health to remain productive will increasingly become important in the nearest future. Also, there is a need for young and more agile people, with interest in farming, to be encouraged to take over from these aging farmers.

The average household size in Ado LGA was 5.9, while that of Irepodun/Ifelodun LGA was 6.7 and there was no significant difference between these two values. The average farm size per household in Ado LGA was 1.49 hectares, while in Irepodun/Ifelodun LGA, it was 2.26 hectares. There was significant difference between the two average farm sizes at the 5% level. This may be as a result of the fact that land is more expensive per unit area in Ado LGA; a phenomenon which started about 15 years ago when Ado-Ekiti became the capital of Ekiti State. The influence of rapid urbanization of Ado-Ekiti has probably also spread to other towns in the LGA causing rising land prices. The phenomenon of rural urban migration has also contributed significantly to the rising population in Ado LGA leading to a relatively higher population density compared to other LGAs. Thus, farms are larger in Irepodun/Ifelodun LGA in spite of greater access by farmers in Ado LGA to extension services; due to the proximity of the Agricultural Development Programme Unit of the State Ministry of Agriculture with its headquarters in Ado-Ekiti.

Primary data analysis also revealed that average years of respondents' farming experience in Ado and Irepodun/Ifelodun LGAs were 28 years and 35 years, respectively. There was a significant difference in these mean values at the 1% level. This shows that farmers in Irepodun/Ifelodun LGA were more experienced in farming activities than their Ado LGA counterparts. This might be as a result of the fact that farmers in Irepodun/Ifelodun are exposed earlier in life to farming and allied activities being the major economic activities in most rural areas in Nigeria (NBS, 2006). In Ado LGA however, there are more opportunities to be engaged in the non-farm sector. This is because Ado LGA is host to the state capital.

Table 7 shows that the average years of formal education was 8.6 in Irepodun/Ifelodun and 11.3 in Ado LGA and there was a significant difference in these mean values at the 5% level. Thus, the tendency exists for a higher influence of the western education on Ado farmers compared with Irepodun/Ifelodun farmers.
