ABSTRACT

The study evaluated the perceived effect of environmental hazards on health conditions and agricultural resources of rural fann households of Imo state, Nigeria. Multi- staged purposive and random sampling techniques were used to choose the samples. The study ascertained the respondents' perception of environmental hazards, evaluated the incidence of environmental hazard-related diseases, and described the effects of environmental hazard on agricultural resources and the perceived effect of environmental hazard on health conditions among other objectives. Primary data collected from 116 respondents were used for the study. Data analysis was carried out with the use of descriptive and inferential statistics and multiple regression analysis. The results of the analysis showed that majority of the respondents were male, with an average household size of 6 persons. Seventy six per cent of the respondents were engaged in cassava production as their major food and cash crop. On respondents perception of environmental hazard, majority of respondents agreed that five (5) out of the (9) nine factors listed constitute environmental hazard. Majority (59.9%) of the respondents identified climate change as a source of environmental hazard, with 49.4% identifying oil exploration as a source of environmental hazard. A mean score of 2.18 on a three-point likert-scale showed that majority of the respondents were aware of the effects of environmental hazard on their farm activities, while a mean score of 1.68 on a three-point likert-scale showed that few were aware of environmental hazard effects on their health. Result from the Probit regression analysis showed that level of education, household size, income, farm size, years of farming experience and membership of co-operative society were positively significant to respondents' knowledge of environmental hazard, while age was negatively significant. On the effects of hazard on health conditions, Oil pollution was significant at 5%, Flood was significant at 5% while wind storm was significant at1%. Flood, oil pollution, erosion and wind storm were significant and xi negatively related to the agricultural production. It was therefore recommended that oil exploration activities that go on in the rural areas should be adequately monitored to reduce its negative effect on the rural environment. More efforts should be made to combat environmental hazard related diseases in the study area, especially malaria. Efforts should be made to mitigate the effects of environmental hazard on health and agricultural production of rural dwellers. This could be achieved by providing health insurance schemes for farmers, paying compensation to farmers over losses arising from environmental hazards and educating the farmers to ensure they possess adequate knowledge as it regards to hazards