Economics of small-scale maize production in Toto local government area, Nasarawa state, Nigeria

Abstract

The study examined the economics of small-scale maize production in Toto Local Government Area of Nasarawa State, Nigeria. A two-stage sampling technique was adopted for the data collection. Descriptive statistics, regression and gross margin analyses were used to analyse the data collected. The study revealed that majority of the respondents were within the active working age and most of them (83%) were male. The majority of the respondents were married and had a household size of five persons and farm size of 1-2ha. Results of the regression analysis revealed that the output of small-scale maize farmers was influenced by farm size, marital status and annual income at 1% and 5% respectively. A gross margin of N170,594.50 was earned from one hectare of maize farm with a return per naira invested of 2.40. The cost of labour constituted a greater proportion of the costs of production, accounting for about 58.38% and 39.52% of the total variable cost and the total cost respectively, the total cost. The problems militating against maize production in the study area were high cost of labour, pests and diseases, inadequate storage facilities, inadequate capital, marketing problems, transportation, poor access to credit facilities and high cost of inputs. The study, therefore, recommends that farmers should be properly educated by the extension agents on pest and disease control measures. Moreover, inputs should be made available to farmers at subsidized rates by relevant stakeholders.

Understanding the determinants of climate change adaptation strategies among smallholder maize farmers in South-west, Nigeria

“…On the aggregate, the majority (86.17%) of the farmers were married and 5.79, 5.47 and 5.67% were widowed, single and divorced, respectively. This finding is in line with the report of Girei et al. (2018) who opined that married farmers are likely to be committed to increasing the yield on their farms as it is critical to the sustenance of their family.…”

Profitability of Small-Scale Maize Production in Nigeria: A Case Study of Bichi Local Government, Kano State-Nigeria

“…Return per naira shows that 87 kobo was earned for each additional investment made; showing that smallscale maize production in the study area was profitable. This is consistent with the finding of [12] and [11] where the gross margin was estimated at 132 751.23 and the return per naira invested was estimated at 1.99. This meant that a return of PAR2 was obtained for each PAR1 invested.…”

“…The increase in farm size and labor will lead to an increase in output. The result of this double log function is in contrast to the double log result of [11] where the calculated R 2 was 0.76, indicating that the variation in the output level was accounted for by the explanatory variables in the model. The double log result also showed that only the labor force had a positive coefficient, which was significant at 1%.…”

“…In Nigeria, poultry producers use maize to prepare feeds for poultry and thousands of people also use maize to serve as their milk [9]. This is why Nigeria's demand for maize is growing steadily [11]. In 2017 Food and Agricultural organization reported that the mean maize output in Nigeria from 1990 to 2015 was nearly 4.7 million tons, but production increased to 10.5 million tons in 2017.…”

WITHDRAWN: Packed Bed Column Adsorption of Phenol Onto Corn Cob Activated Carbon: Linear and Nonlinear Kinetics Modeling

“…Hence, millions of tons of corn cob are dumped as waste annually, constituting environmental pollution. It was reported by Gireiet al [40] that Nigeria produced about 10.5 million metric tons of maize in 2016/2017. Finding an economic utilization of this agro-waste is a valuable research exercise.…”