Abstract
Urban households in Nigeria are faced with challenges of land availability leading to low production of crops. Hence, this study was undertaken to
analyze determinants of urban households’ engagement in sack farming in Umuahia North Local Government Area of Abia State, Nigeria. This
research specifically, described socio-economic characteristics of urban households; ascertained level(s) of urban households’ engagement and
examined constraints to engaging in sack farming in the study area. Multistage random sampling procedure was used to select sixty (60) urban
households. Structured questionnaire was used to elicit information from respondents and results analyzed using both descriptive statistics
(frequency counts, mean scores and percentages); inferential statistics (multiple regression analysis). Socio-economic characteristics result revealed
that they had a mean age of 45.86 years, means household size of 5 persons, mean farming experience of 15 years, grew crops in mean sack bags
of 63 with mean monthly extension contact of 1.5 visits. Urban households had high engagement ( =3.1) and high constraint ( =2.0) in sack
farming practices. Multiple regression analysis results showed that coefficients for age (-0.0245), household size (0.6645), farming experience
(0.0234), number of sack bags (0.0225) and extension contact (0.5853) influenced urban household engagement in sack farming practices. The
study therefore recommended need to strengthen agricultural extension and training programmes, access to essential inputs such as sack bags and
improved seeds in order to facilitate urban households’ engagement in sack farming practices in the study areaIJCCAES Model Nwaobiala, C. U net
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