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Adoption of new technology, especially as it relates to agricultural production has been considered to play an important role in improving food security in developing countries which Nigeria is one. Crop farmers, especially those that cultivate cassava often record high productivity but with increase in deficiencies of essential nutrients such as zinc, vitamin A, Iron among others, causing malnutrition and consequently, poor health of individuals. This study examined perception and determinants of rural farmers’ willingness to adopt biofortified ‘yellow’ cassava in Oyo State, Nigeria. Primary data employed in the study were obtained from 120 respondents which were selected using a multi-stage random sampling technique. Analysis of the socio-economic characteristics showed that the mean age of household heads in the area was 46.06±15.58 years while almost all the farmers had up to 17years of farming experience and above. With respect to the level awareness of biofortified cassava, almost all the respondents were aware of the biofortified cassava. Logit Regression Model result revealed that farmers’ willingness to adopt biofortified cassava in the study area was influenced mainly by gender, source of inputs, marital status, access to extension officer and membership of farmer organization. However, the constraints faced by the respondents reported were: the risks in adoption, access to credit and access to market while the least severe constraints were size of farm, access to information, tradition and extension officer. The study recommends that existing programmes that disburse agricultural input should be increased in the rural areas since the study found source of input to affect the adoption of biofortified cassava. This could be done by including the biofortified cassava stem in the inputs disbursed through the e-wallet agricultural policy.Keywords: Biofortified cassava; perception; willingness to adopt and logit model

The performances of two full information techniques, Three Stage Least Squares (3SLS) and Full Information Maximum Likelihood (FIML) of simultaneous equation models with correlated disturbance terms are compared with the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) method in small samples. Comparative performance evaluation of the estimators was done using Average of Estimates, Total Absolute Bias (TAB) of Estimates, Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE) and Sum of Squared Residuals (RSS) of parameter estimates. The results of the Monte Carlo experiment showed that OLS is best with large negative or positive correlation, while 3SLS is best with feebly correlated error terms in the case of replication-based averages. The total absolute biases increase consistently as the sample size increases for OLS while FIML estimates reveal no distinct pattern. The magnitudes of the estimates yielded by two estimators, OLS and 3SLS, exhibited fairly consistent reaction to changes in magnitudes and direction of correlations of error terms.

No abstract

This study was carried out to detect hepatitis C virus (HCV) antibody and risk factors of transmission among children in Ibadan, Oyo State, Southwestern Nigeria. In order to estimate the prevalence rate of HCV and to evaluate the influence of children demographics on HCV seropositivity, a well-designed questionnaire was used to obtain data considered risk factors for contracting HCV from consenting children. This study was conducted between August 2011 and October 2011. Thereafter, 217 apparently healthy male and female children were consecutively selected. A total of 217 blood samples were collected from children attending the Oni Memorial Children Hospital, Ibadan. The male:female ratio was 1:1. Majority of the children were females [109(50.2%)] while males were [108(49.8%). Blood samples were screened by parallel diagnostic method using Dia Spot® HCV test kit and Global One Step Strip Style HCV test kit (Global Diagnostic ® Canada) for HCV antibody. Overall prevalence rate of HCV antibody was 0.9%. It showed that HCV prevalence was higher among children aged less than 10 years, a total of 192 samples were tested, of which four (4) tested positive for HCV, thus, giving the prevalence of 2.0%. The other age groups showed zero seroposivity for HCV. HCV was only found to be higher among male children [3(1.8%)] than their female counterparts [1(0.9%)]. HCV prevalence was higher among children without history of vaccinations [2(4.9%)] than their counterparts with history of vaccinations [2(1.1%)]. There was significant association (p<0.05) between age, sex, history of vaccinations and HCV infection acquisition among these population. This study however confirmed the presence of HCV among children in Oyo State, Nigeria. General surveillance and public health education to stop the spread of the infection among children in Ibadan and indeed the whole society is advocated. IO Okonko