Abstract
The design for manufacturing of granulating machines to produce fertilizer granules in small scale using locally available materials is often challenging and this results in low fertilizer usage among Nigerian farmers when compared with the world’s average usage. A lot of factors are associated with chemical fertilizer granulating machine, and it is necessary to examine and understand the interplay among these factors. This study weighs up a number of variables that relates with the design and usage of chemical fertilizer granulating machine and offers increased insight and awareness about their insidiousness. The study employed a survey approach, using the Rensis Likert’s attitudinal scale, to generate respondents’ data matrix that was analyzed with Principal Component Analysis (PCA), and which was facilitated by statistiXL software. Kendall’s Coefficient of Concordance (KCC) was used to rank the thirty two (32) identified variables and PCA was thereafter deployed to ascertain the degree of interplay among the variables. Results obtained by KCC suggested that judges ranking were consistent as there was sufficient evidence to reject the null hypothesis Also, PCA was indicating parsimony in data reduction from 32 variables to mere five. The result established five principal factors creatively labeled Miscellany Components, Technical Considerations, Granulation Efficiency, Agricultural National policy and Biophysical Elements. The most influential variable by its factor loading of 0.894 is Agricultural National policy. A gamut of variables which seem to affect chemical fertilizer granulating machine has been examined. This has helped in discerning similarities in dissimilarities.
Highlights
The state of food insecurity in Nigeria has become so deplorable that we are called a “food deficit” country in the world
Advance technology of forming inorganic fertilizer granules employed in large-scale production are reported by [5] and [6]
In Nigeria, little appears to be known on the appropriate technology for small-scale production of inorganic fertilizers in granules
Summary
The state of food insecurity in Nigeria has become so deplorable that we are called a “food deficit” country in the world. In Nigeria, little appears to be known on the appropriate technology for small-scale production of inorganic fertilizers in granules. This has resulted to a huge lack of fertilizer or fertilizer machines for use by the local farmer in the absence of government subsidized commercial chemical fertilizer. The need to boost land fertility through the use of both organic and inorganic fertilizers is desirable More so is this necessary because the application of fertilizer in Nigeria is very low when compared with the average application in the world as stated by [8]. These variables need to be analyzed collectively in order to have a systemic understanding of them
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