The research empirically determined the efficiency of the productive resources used in rice production among IFAD beneficiaries in Niger State of Nigeria using field survey data of 2018 production season elicited from 111 farmers through structured questionnaire complemented with interview schedule and the representative sample size was arrived at through multi-stage sampling design. The multiple regression model which adopted ordinary least square (OLS) estimation technique was used to analyze the data collected. The empirical findings showed that the farmers were operating within the economic region of production but were not at the economic optimum point owing to inefficiency in the utilization of the available recommended technologies at their disposal coupled with market imperfections. Thus, sequel to this, the study recommends the need for capacity building for the farmers on the recommended technologies
Farmers were not efficient in the utilization of the farm resources at their disposal given the available technology.
There is need for capacity building so as to enhance productivity of rice in the studied area.
It has been reported by Babatunde (2006) that especially in the developing countries such as Nigeria, the concern over the alarming rate of poverty level and the need for its alleviation as a means of enhancing the living standard of the people has led to the conceptualization and implementation of various poverty alleviation programmes worldwide among which International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) was initiated. Rapid agricultural growth still remains the surest and possible way to poverty reduction in Nigeria. The IFAD support to the Nigerian Government’s poverty reduction programme in rural areas is essentially people-centered with its target groups being the share labourers, landless, marginal and small-scale farmers who major in the sub-Saharan farming population (IFAD, 2013). Thus, the IFAD supports programmes and projects that work with the communities and the smallholder farmers are the key players.
The prime motives of IFAD/VCDP programme are to enhance the food security of the food supplying population i.e. the rural population especially the resource-poor farmers; the food demanding population especially the urban population; and enhance the living standard of the targeted population especially the landless, marginal and small-scale farmers through income doubling by encouraging them to take advantage of value addition i.e. additional non-farm activities. The programme is anchored on technical support, linking farmers with input and output markets to achieve their set goals. Given the economic status of the targeted population which are mostly share labourers, landless, marginal and small-scale farmers which are resource poor, the achievement of the goals of the programme is in doubt as these categories of farmers are less likely to make a paradigm shift in their scale of production as their experiences on previous programmes makes it difficult for them to delineate totally from the conventional available technology at their disposal. From empirical observation, the yield of the participating farmers in the study area has been below the recommended output level of 7 to 8 tons. Therefore, since the farmers did not have the passion to delineate totally from the existing conventional technology available at their disposal, therefore, an alternative which will build on the already existing available technology need to be advanced in order to make the programme a success in reality, thus exiting the farmers from the economic status of resource poor. In addition, the pitfall is that most of the empirical studies on food security programmes for sub-Saharan Africa mostly abstract the programme success from the macro level to the micro level instead of the reverse situation i.e. mostly concentrate on the effect and impact of the programme on farmers income (for example Galadima 2014; Abdullahi
The outcome of this research will be of immense benefit as it will aid in guiding policymakers on how to make an adjustment at the farm production level which is very vital to the viability of the rural economy which inturn is indispensable to economic growth and development of Niger State in particular and the country at large. In addition, it will add to the advancement of knowledge and a basis to explore further on by the researchers especially on IFAD programme in the study area. However, the research suggests that future studies should look into the symmetric and asymmetric effects of risks and idiosyncratic factors causing yield gap among the participating farmers as the present research limited its scope to production inputs.
The location of Niger state is on latitudes 8°20′N and 11°30′N of the equator and longitudes 3°30′E and 7°20′E of the GMT. The agro-ecological zone of the state is northern guinea savannah with a fringe of southern guinea savannah in Mokwa LGA. The major occupation of the inhabitants is farming and it’s complemented with civil service jobs, artisanal, craftwork,
Zone C, Wushishi LGA was purposively selected based on its comparative advantage as rice is produce throughout the year owing to the presence of Tungan Kawo irrigation dam. In the second stage, two villages were randomly selected from each of the chosen participating LGAs. Thereafter, two active co-operative associations from each of the selected villages were randomly selected. It is worth to note that Microsoft excel inbuilt random sampling mechanism was used for the random selections of the villages and the co-operative associations. In the last stage, using the sampling frame obtained from the IFAD/VCD office (
Where:
Thus,
The multiple regression model is presented below:
Where;
β0 = Intercept
β1-8 = Regression coefficients
ϵ
LGAs |
Villages |
Co-operative Associations |
SF |
SS |
---|---|---|---|---|
Katcha |
Baddegi |
Managi Badeggi Farmers CMPS |
24 |
10 |
Aminci Ebanti Twaki CMPS Ltd. |
25 |
10 |
||
Edostu |
Edotsu Co-Operative Credit & Marketing CMPS |
25 |
10 |
|
Edotsu Jinjin Wugakun Yema CMPS |
25 |
10 |
||
Shiroro |
Baha |
Baha Abmajezhin Cooperative Multi-Purpose Society Ltd. |
15 |
7 |
Abwanubo Najeyi Development Association |
18 |
8 |
||
Paigado |
Paigado Achajebwa Development Farmers Soc. |
25 |
10 |
|
Paigado Farmers Cooperative Society Ltd. |
25 |
10 |
||
Wushishi |
Bankogi |
Bankogi Alheri Farmers Coop. Multipurpose Soc Ltd. |
22 |
9 |
Bankogi Gwari Nasara CMPS |
16 |
7 |
||
Kanko |
Kanko Arewa Farmers |
25 |
10 |
|
Kanko Unguwar Ndakogi Cooperative Multipurpose Society Ltd. |
25 |
10 |
||
The functional forms fitted into the specified equation are as follow:
The elasticity of production was used to estimate the rate of return to scale which is a measure of a firm’s success in producing maximum output from a set of variable inputs.
Where:
Following Dawson and Lingard (1982); Hussain (2013); and Sadiq
Where
The following ratio was used to estimate the relative efficiency of resource use (
Where:
Economic optimum takes place where
The OLS estimation results of the four functional forms fitted into the specified production equation showed the linear regression to be the best fit as it satisfied all the needed conditions
The observed coefficient of multiple determination (R2) value is 0.728, implying that 72.8% of the variation in the rice output of the farmers was explained by the controlled variables included in the model. In addition, the significance of the F-statistics at 1% degree of freedom implies that the explanatory variables have a strong influence on the explained variable and also from the population point of view the inputs have a strong influence on the rice output. A cursory review of the results showed only size of the operational holding, NPK fertilizer and human labour to have a significant influence on the rice output as their respective estimated parameters were different from zero at 10% degree of freedom as against others whose parameter estimates were not different from zero at 10% degree of freedom. The positive significance of farm size revealed the effects of economies of scale and land productivity in increasing rice output among the IFAD farmers. Thus, the marginal and elasticity implications of a unit increase in the rice operational holding by 1 hectare will lead to an increase in rice output by 1475.41kg and 0.41% respectively. The positive significance of the NPK fertilizer indicates the availability of the agro-input owing to the subsidy, thus the adequate application of the dosage which increase the rice output in the studied area. Therefore, the marginal and elasticity implications of a unit increase in NPK fertilizer by 1 kg will lead to an increase in the rice output by 6.03kg and 0.289% respectively. The positive significance of the two forms of human labour used
On the other hand, for the non-significant variables captured in the model, their sizes and signs to some extent have empirical implications. The positive non-significance of the estimated parameter for seed did not owe to the use of local variety as almost all of the farmers used improved seed variety but rather owes to improper and low adoption of the recommended quantity due to poor technical knowhow for the former and insufficient quantity owing to high cost associated with improved variety for the latter, thus exerting insignificant influence on rice output. Also, the positive non-significance of the urea and herbicides is associated with low usage below the recommended dosage owing to the high cost associated with these agro-inputs, thus not exerting significant influence on the rice output. The negative non-significance of the estimated parameter for depreciation on capital items did not come as a surprise as the farmers been smallholders used crude/primitive tools to perform virtually all the operations in their farms and these implements been replaced every cropping season due to wear and tear, the extra cost been incurred affects the output of rice in the studied area.
Furthermore, since the farmers were operating in the long-run, it was observed that the farmers were operating within the economic or rational production region as indicated by the sum of the return to scale value of 0.978 i.e. stage II which is noted to be decreasing return to scale given that the input in relation to the output at ascending level change in descending proportionate order. In other words, it implies that any extra unit of input will lead to an increasing-decreasing increase in the output level
A perusal of
Since the results showed that the farmers were operating in the economic production region in which optimum production point exist, therefore, the farmers at the existing available technology need to allocate their resources efficiently keeping in view the prevailing market prices in order to maximize profit in rice production which in turn has a significant influence in sustaining the going concern of the business.
The empirical evidence showed that virtually all the resources used with the exception of depreciation on capital items were under-utilized due to poor adoption of the recommended technologies at their disposal with farm size having the highest index value of 44.26 followed by NPK fertilizer (5.66) while the remaining inputs were within the index range of less than 3 and greater than 0 (
Based on the empirical findings it can be inferred that the farmers were within the economic region in which economic optimum point can be attained but were not efficient in the utilization of their productive resources owing to poor adoption of the available recommended production technologies at their disposal. In addition, the market imperfections