EFFECTS OF LAND DEGRADATION ON AGRICULTURAL ACTIVITIES IN ANAMBRA EAST L.G.A, ANAMBRA STATE

ABSTRACT

The study examined the effects of land degradation on agriculture in Anambra state. Two Local Government Areas were purposively selected from the state while a town community was purposively selected from Anambra East Local Government Area. Proportionate sampling technique was used to select the villages in each town and a total of 150 respondents were used for the study. Frequency, percentage and mean score were used for data analysis. Some findings of the study were: Findings at most revealed that 70% strongly agree that land was in existence before the advent of man, 70% agree that land is very important to man, 68.8% strongly agree that man’s live is dependent on the land, 70.0% strongly agree that man’s various activities has caused shifts in the natural mechanism of the environment, 70.3% of the population strongly agree that the accelerated erosion has cause degradation to the land, 70.5% of the population Deforestation is one of the major source of land degradation, 70.5% of the population agree that Exploration of crude oil has caused the land degraded.

Statement of the Problem
Degradation of land is one of the most serious challenges before the mankind in today’s world. Mankind has been facing a wide range of problems arising out of the degradation of land. Not only the areas under human inhabitation, but the areas of the planet without human population have also been suffering from these problems. The number of problems arising out of land degradation has been increasing and the intensity of these problems has, at the same time, been aggravating with time.

Land cover change takes place due to multiplicity of a number of natural as well as anthropogenic factors. All of them together bring about a change in the general environment of an area. Manifestations of the natural forces like forest fire, volcanic eruption, earthquake, tornado, tsunami, flood, meteor-fall, cloud burst etc. which occur from time to time, cause serious damage to the environment. Human activities can generate severe negative impact on earth systems resulting in environmental degradation. The truth is that the present man-induced or anthropogenic factors are causing many times more damages to the environment than their natural counterpart.
Looking back into the past we find that the use of fire by the pre-historic people is the initiation of man-induced land degradation. Production of food grain through agriculture, which came little later and initiated permanent settlement replacing the nomadic life style of the pre-historic people is another important factor to cause man-induced environmental degradation at a much faster manner. During that period these were not felt as problems. The dimension of these problems started to grow with human population and associated diversification of the economic activities. Hence an investigation of effect and compensation for environmental degradation in Anambra east L.G.A in Anambra state.