The Nature of Land Resource Ownership and Perceptions on its Management among Farming Families of South East Nigeria

Land has a cultural value in Nigeria in that its ownership cements the relationship of the owner with the community. But more importantly, land resource is critical to the livelihood of rural farmers because they depend on it for income and food supply. It is therefore important that it is sustainably managed and efficiently used. This study investigated the ownership pattern of land among the farming families in the study area and the attitude towards its management. It adopted the farming and rural systems approach which considers the family-farmhousehold as a system. A multistage random sampling technique was used to select 120 farming families. A hierarchical clustering process was used to group the sample into the Land Resource Rich (LRR) and Land Resource Poor (LRP). Data collected were further analysed and interpreted in a comparative manner using descriptive statistics and Mann-Whitney-u test. The Likert scale was used to assess their perceptions on land management. The results show that the LRP had an average land area that was one-third of the land-resource rich. The LRR were more active in land market in terms of sales, rent and purchase; but they considered that the land available for agricultural purposes was not enough. The LRP devoted more land to crops and were more dependent on forest products for fuels and herbs. The ownership rights were often without title deed among the LRP which affected their interest in land and soil management techniques. Erosion and soil infertility were major problems identified by both systems as being the major cause of yield reduction in output. But the perception on land resource management was particularly negative among the LRR.