Abstract

A survey involving 160 kola nut traders who were randomly selected in two local governments of Ondo state was conducted to examine pest management practices carried out by the traders. Interview schedule structured questionnaire was used in a multi-stage random sampling to select 40 kola nut traders from two villages in each local government. Results showed that most of the respondents were already old with the mean age of 67 years, 87.5% were female, while 80.0% were married. Also, 25.0% had no formal education, 50.0% took farming as primary occupation. 80% traders used phostoxin tablets in preserving their kola nuts after proper curing though 40% still made use of gammalin 20 despite environmental concerns. Since 50% of traders used phostoxin, effectiveness of the fumigation was implicated as a preferred protectant. 80% of the respondents sources for chemical majorly from the hawkers, though only 35% of respondents were aware of the recently approved pesticides for use on kola, while 10% of the traders claimed to be aware of the ban. Thus, only 15.6% of traders claimed to be aware of health implications. Finally, the results of chi-square analysis revealed that relationship between socio-economic variables and insect pest control is highly significant. Traders were faced with a lot of constraints such as poor extension visit, paucity of information about the practice which consequently affected pest management practice on their farms.

Key words: Phostoxin, gammalin 20, preservation, insecticide, fumigation.