Abstract:
The study was carried out to assess urban agricultural waste management (WM) practices for sustainable development in Delta State, Nigeria. Specifically, the study identified the types of wastes generated from urban agricultural activities, methods of Reduce, Re-use and Recycle (3R’s) wastes generated from urban agricultural activities, constraints to WM practices and measures for enhancing WM practices in Delta State. Six research questions and six null hypotheses guided the study. The population of the study was 1,306 made up of 43 registered agricultural product marketers, 127 staff of Waste Management Board (WMB) and 1,136 registered urban farmers all from Delta State, Nigeria. The sample for the study was 334 made up of 43 registered agricultural product marketers, 64 staff of WMB and 227 registered urban farmers all from Delta State. The entire population of marketers was studied while proportionate random sampling technique was used to select 50% of staff of WMB and 20% of farmers. A structured questionnaire developed using information from the literature reviewed by the researcher was utilized to collect data from the respondents. Each item in sections A-F of the questionnaire was assigned a four response options of Strongly Agree (SA), Agree (A), Disagree (D) and Strongly Disagree (SD) with values of 4, 3, 2 and 1 respectively. The questionnaire was face validated by three experts; two from the Department of Agricultural and Bio-resources Education, University of Nigeria, Nsukka and one from the Operations Department, Delta State WMB, Asaba. The internal consistency of the items was established using Cronbach Alpha method, which yielded a coefficient of 0.77. Six research assistants helped to administer the questionnaire to the three groups of respondents. Data collected were analysed using mean to answer the research questions while Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to test the six null hypotheses at the probability level of 0.05. The study found out that; urban agricultural activities in Delta State generate a range of biodegradable and non-biodegradable wastes. 35 items were identified as methods to reduce, re-use and recycle agricultural wastes. 15 items were identified as constraints to WM practices. The six hypotheses tested revealed significant difference hence; post-hoc test was carried out to detect the source of the differences which revealed the professional roles of two groups of the respondents affected their opinion on the areas of difference. It was recommended that farmers, agricultural product marketers and environmental authorities in urban areas should adopt 3R’s WM practices, applying the 21 measures identified for enhancing these practices for sustainable development in Delta State.
