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The study was conducted to determine the impact of farmers' membership of cooperative societies on rice production. Against the backdrop that the promotion of membership of cooperative society among farmers would give them better access to agricultural inputs and consequently improve their income. Multistage sampling technique was employed to select a total of 310 rice farmers. Data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics, budgetary technique and inferential statistics. The results revealed the mean age of the rice farmers as 48 years. Majority (92%) of the farmers produced upland rice, with a single harvest per year using mainly owned resources. Family labour was the most important source of farm labour in rice cultivation and about 60% of the members of the farm families participated in the family rice farm. The results further showed that 38.9% of rice farmers had primary education, 27.4% had secondary education, while 25.1% had no education. A total of 71% of the rice farmers were members of rice farmers' cooperative societies, while 29% were not. The average farm size cultivated was 1.72ha and 1.64ha for cooperative and non-cooperative members respectively. The result also showed that there is no significant difference in the gross margin per hectare realized by farmers that were cooperative members (N90, 222) and the non cooperative members (N92, 986). The input-use structure showed that cooperative members were more intensive users of purchased inputs like fertilizer and pesticides valued at N124,555 per ha (about 41% of variable cost) compared to the non cooperative members valued at N57,647 per ha (about 22% of the variable cost). Almost all the groups were established to serve as receptacles for subsidized agricultural services and inputs rather than real producer organizations that seek to attract commercial providers of services and ensure efficient marketing of their farm outputs. Further revelation from the study is the fact that membership of cooperative society was found to be influenced by household size, access to extension services, number of rice farms owned, access of rice farmers to herbicide and quantity of rice output. The non-significant difference in the gross margin of cooperative and non-cooperative members despite the greater intensity of use of purchased inputs (fertilizer and pesticide) by cooperative members suggests the need for monitoring of rice farmers who are cooperators in order to ensure that the substantial inputs are rightly channeled.

The nutritional intake of the rural households, which is largely characterised by carbohydrates at the expense of protein intake, has the potentials of being improved through the consumption of sheep and goats' milk. With the widespread of small ruminant keeping by rural households in most developing countries, the study embarked on investigation of possible acceptability of sheep and goats' milk for consumption by farm families in selected rural communities of Ogun State. With the use of interview guide to obtain information from the conveniently selected 150 rural farm families, the results showed that 72% of them reared goats, keeping between 6 and 10 of the animal; 84% consumed wara (local cheese) as milk product from cow's milk; and 20% occasionally consumed milk either in evaporated and/or powdered forms. Although, none of the rural farm families ever consumed sheep and goats' milk basically because it was hardly available in the Nigerian market in any form, 57.3% of them slightly accepted to consume the small ruminant's milk. Chi-square test of the relationship between farm families' socioeconomic characteristic; their milk consumption pattern and their probable acceptability of sheep and goats' milk for consumption showed no significant relationship. The study concluded that the rural farm families had a slight potential of accepting the small ruminants' milk for consumption and thus recommended that the farm families should be educated and trained on technical exploration of the small ruminants' milk for production and consumption.

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The transformational role of ICT in the social and economic spheres of man engendered development of the communication technology in Nigeria. Based on the telecom deregulation policy of the Nigerian Government in 2001, the country witnessed an upsurge of private investment in ICT development and its consequential ICT revolution. An empirical survey of diffusion and adoption pattern of ICT in the Nigerian agricultural system showed that mobile phone constitutes the most widely adopted ICT device by the agricultural researchers, extension agents, and rural farmers. In addition to this was computer and internet adoption by the researchers and radio transistors by the rural farmers. All eight agricultural research organisations and four extension agencies surveyed had electronic mail addresses and telephone lines for information exchanges. Six of the agricultural organisations - CRIN, FRIN, NIHORT, IAR&T, NIOMR, and NAERLS, and one of the extension agencies – LSADA, had organisational websites for hoisting generated agricultural information. Based on rural farmers’ access to radio, and to some extent television, the research and extension organisations aired agricultural programmes on these electronic media for the farmers. ICT usage in the Nigerian agricultural system is however challenged by less development and exploration of communication technologies, poor electric power supply, and poor human operational skills development for effective utilisation of the information-driven technologies. This situation thus necessitates the need for pro-agriculture ICT development and human capacity for effective utilisation in the Nigerian agricultural system.