Abstract
The study was aimed at determining the influence of oil and gas exploitation on agricultural production and coping mechanisms required by farmers for sustainable agriculture in Bayelsa State. The study specifically determined the activities of oil and gas exploitation, the influence of oil and gas exploitation on crop and aquacultural production as well as the influence on farmers and also explored the coping mechanisms to curtail problems of oil and gas exploitation. Five research questions and four hypotheses guided the study. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design. The population of the study was 67,551registered farmers of the federal ministry of agriculture and rural development in the state. Proportionate stratified random sampling technique was used to select 1% of the farmers according to their LGAs (strata) bringing the sample to 674 respondents. A 75-items structured questionnaire was used to collect data. The items on the questionnaire were assigned four response options of High Influence/Strongly Agree (HI/SA= 4), Moderate Influence/Agree (MI/A=3), Slight Influence/Disagree (SI/D=2) and No Influence/Strongly Disagree (NI/SD=1). The instrument was face validated by three experts: all from the Department of Vocational Teacher Education, University of Nigeria, Nsukka. The reliability of the questionnaire was established using Cronbach Alpha method and a coefficient of 0.78 was obtained. Out of the 674 copies of the instrument administered, 650 copies of the questionnaire were retrieved and utilized for analysis representing 96% retrieval. The data were analyzed using mean and standard deviation to answer the research questions and t-test statistics was used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance at the appropriate degrees of freedom. The findings of the study revealed that the influence of oil and gas exploitation on crop, aquacultural production as well as on farmers in Bayelsa state is moderate. Findings further revealed that Oil and gas exploitation has resulted to reduction of crop yield, retarded growth rate in crops and has led to reduction in total land for crop production activities as well as led to high displacement of farmers from their original settlements and has resulted to loss of farmland for agricultural activities as indicated by farmers in Bayelsa State. Recommendations made included continuous training of extension workers on current information about curtailing problems of oil and gas exploitation so as to enable them enlighten farmers, the encouragement of farmers by Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and other wellmeaning non-governmental organization in the providing incentives and subsidizing inputs for the farmers in Bayelsa State.