THE IMPACT OF URBANIZATION ON RURAL AND AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT

THE IMPACT OF URBANIZATION ON RURAL AND AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT

ABSTRACT

This study examined the impact of urbanization on rural and agricultural development in Igabi local government, Kaduna state. The study employed the use of LandSat/GIS imagery of 1995, 2005 and 2015 as well as cross sectional survey to generate data. Data were analyzed using frequency tables, percentages, multinomial logistic regression and the multiple regression model. LandSat result shows that built-up areas increased from16.46% to 19.43% and 20.99% in 1995, 2005 and 2015 respectively while agricultural land use increased from 9.34% to 18.27% and 27.72% in 1995, 2005 and 2015. High forest area decreased by 55.0% between 1995 and 2005 and 27.9% between 2005 and 2015. Then water body decreased from 2.30% in 1995 to 1.21% in 2005 but rose by 2% in 2015. Degraded forest increased from 32.55% in 1995 to 43.39% in 2005 and then declined to 36.52 in 2015. The cross sectional survey shows that 64% of the respondents agreed that availability of market influenced agricultural land use pattern while 82.6% of the respondents agreed that the type of land ownership of the residents have affected agricultural land use in the study area. Also, 92.9% of the respondents agreed that shortage of land has affected agricultural land use while 94.4% of the respondents believed that distance to farmlands affected agricultural land use and 89.3% equally agreed that high demand for agricultural produce affects agricultural land use in the study area. Results from the regression analysis shows that build-up areas, degraded forest and water bodies were significant factors affecting agricultural land use in the study area at 5% significance level. Findings from the logit regression shows that land ownership is 3.18-07 times less likely to have a strong negative effect on the livelihood of dwellers while source of income is 0.22 times less likely to have a negative effect on the livelihood of settlers. The change in income is 0.18 times less likely to have a negative impact on the livelihood of dwellers in the study area. Also land conversion is 667882.7 times more likely to have a strong negative effect on the livelihood of dwellers while displaced off from farmlands was 433248.8 times more likely to have a negative effect on the livelihood of dwellers in the study area. The study therefore recommends policy intervention to serve as a check to periurban agricultural land use in order to control excessive land sub-division and intensifying and diversifying agriculture in order to supplement land loss and improve the livelihood of dwellers in the study area