Paul Temegbe Owombo

One of the challenges facing smallholder farmers in Nigeria is the inefficiency of resource use. The study was therefore conducted to investigate resource use efficiency and return to scale in maize production in the study area. Data were collected from randomly selected 120 maize farmers using a self-designed structure questionnaire in the study area. Data were analysed with the aid of descriptive statistics and Cobb-Douglas production function. Findings showed resources in the area were inefficiently allocated. Seed, labour and fertilizer were under-utilized while farm size and pesticides were overutilized. The returns to scale analysis showed that maize farmers in the area were in irrational stage one of the production curve. The study concluded that maize farmers in the area can increase production by employing more of productive resources.

Enhancing crop yield through the adoption of fertility and eco-system enhancing agricultural technologies is an important step towards a sustainable food production system among rural farming households in developing countries. The study was therefore conducted using cross-sectional data from smallholder farming households to assess the effect of agroforestry technology on the yield of maize in Sapoba forest reserve in Orhionmwon Local Government area of Edo State, Nigeria. We correct for endogeneity in adoption and employ instrumental variables analysis to investigate the effect of adoption of the technology on the yield of maize. Our analysis shows that the adoption of the technology had positive and significant effect on the yield of maize in the study area. This finding provides empirical evidence that the yield of maize among smallholder maize farmers can be raised through the use of agroforestry technology.

As parts of the efforts to reduce land degradation and hence improve farm productivity, farmers in the area were introduced to various land conservation technologies. The study was thus conducted to investigate the determinants of land conservation technologies in the area. Data collected through a multi-stage sampling procedure were analysed with the aid of descriptive statistics and multinomial logit model. Findings revealed significant difference between socio-economic characteristics of the respondents such as age (p?0.01), household size (p?0.01), farm size (p?0.01), value of livestock (p?0.01) and off-farm income (p?0.01). Findings further revealed that level of education, extension contact and land ownership significantly influenced farmers adoption of mulching, cover cropping and tree planting respectively. On the other hand, while age of respondents reduced farmers’ adoption of mulching and tree planting, membership of association increased the adoption of cover cropping. Government through her agencies and other development organizations should therefore put in place policy framework that would educate the farmers through regular extension contact and also carry out a review of land ownership rights in the study area. This would enhance farmers’ adoption of conservation options and hence, sustainable production.