Alleviating Rural Poverty Through Integrating Indigenous Tree Fruits among Cultivated Crops by Rural Famers in Cross River State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study examined ways of alleviating poverty among rural farmers in Cross River State, Nigeria through integrating indigenous fruit trees into the farming system. Causes of rural poverty among farmers were enumerated as decline in economic development, unstable political system, corruption, rural-urban migration, occurrence of pests and disease. Characteristic features of four indigenous fruit trees were highlighted. The paper enumerated the benefits which farmers may derived from such integration, as food supply, income generation, employment, environmental protection and improvement in the health of the farmers. Constraints which may hinder effective integration were identified as insufficient land holdings, lack of capital and collaterals by prospective farmers, poor yield of indigenous species and incidence of pests and diseases. Based on the findings, it is hereby suggested that government should create awareness through seminars, talks using local dialects on the benefit of growing fruit trees, encourage and assist farmers acquire soft credit facilities to expand their hectare cultivation. Also, farmers should be encourage to establish private orchards, revocate the traditional land use policy to enable prospective farmers have access to land as well as teach farmers on proper ways of harvesting, processing and storage to avoid spoilage of fruit tree crops.