A Comparative Analysis of Farmers’ Livelihood Strategies by Optimizing Resource Use in Farming Areas of Adamawa State, Nigeria and Eastern Uttar Pradesh, India: An Application of Sen’s Multi-Objectve Programming Approach

Abstract

This paper explores the likelihoods of optimal allocation of resources as livelihood strategies for the farmers in Eastern Uttar Pradesh, India and Adamawa State, Nigeria. The study compared and determined the best production plan and resource allocation among food crop farmers in the two location of the study area Eastern Uttar Pradesh and Adamawa State, Nigeria. The objective of the study was to examine the socio-economic characteristics of food crop famers and to formulate alternative farm plans for improving farm economy. A multistage random sampling technique was used to select a total of 300 food crop farmers, the data for the study were randomly collected from 150 farmers from the eight district of Varanasi District of Eastern Uttar Pradesh and 150 from eight villages of the 21 local government area of Adamawa state.  Structured questionnaire survey was used to obtained data from the respondents in the study area.  Descriptive statistics and Sen’s Multi-Objective Programming (MOP) Model was used to analyze the data obtained from the field survey. The study shows that in Eastern Uttar Pradesh and Adamawa State, majority 96% and 68.7%   were full time farmers with average mean of 46.5 and 31 years of age respectively. They had average agricultural farming experience of 27 years for farmers in Uttar Pradesh and 30.96 years of farming experience for farmers in Adamawa State Nigeria. Majority (94%) Eastern Uttar Pradesh and (85.3%)  Adamawa State were male farmers and only 18.7% in Uttar Pradesh and 15.3% of the respondent had no formal education with average land holding of 0.73 (Uttar Pradesh) and 3.1 (Adamawa State) hectares. The result of the multiple objective programming reveals that the existing average income of ₹58168 (Uttar Pradesh) and ₹69348.97 (Adamawa State) was realized while the optimal income obtained from the multi-objective programming was ₹61251.40 Uttar Pradesh and ₹71979.95 Adamawa State which is 5.30 and 3.79 per cent higher over present income respectively. Consequently, for employment, the existing plan was 80.92 man days for Uttar Pradesh and 156.5 man days for Adamawa State while the optimal plan for the maximization of employment recommends 81.32 man days which represent 0.49 per cent increase for Uttar Pradesh and 162 man days which represent 3.51per cent increase for Adamawa State. Lastly for the minimization of fertilizer the existing plan allocated 218.97 kg for farmers in Uttar Pradesh and 282.15 kg  for farmers in Adamawa State of fertilizer while the optimal plan for minimization of fertilizer use recommends 204 kg Uttar Pradesh and 218.03 kg Adamawa State which represents a decrease of 6.83 per cent and  22.73 per cent respectively. It is recommended among others that the food crop farmers be educated on allocation of resources for optimum utilization to raise their level of production and income for a better livelihood.