Abstract
This study examined productive resources of maize crop among farming households in Ekiti State, Nigeria. The study used multistage sampling techniques. Data were collected from 120 maize farmers through well-structured questionnaires from three Local Government Areas of Ekiti State. The collected data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics, and stochastic frontier regression model. Results from descriptive analysis showed that 30 percent of the maize farmers had secondary school education and above. Majority of the respondents (66.70%) had between 5 and 8 members that made up the household in the study area. It was revealed through the study that the majority of the respondents produced on a fairly large scale with average maize farm size of 3.39 hectares. Also, 80.0% of the maize farmers in the study area had more than 15 years farming experience. With profit of ₦116,590 per hectare and percentage profit of 58.63%, the venture is considered to be highly profitable. Farmers who invested ₦1 realized revenue of ₦1.59. The level of technical efficiency in maize production in Ekiti State ranged from 29.8% to 96.5% with a mean of 64.3%. This means that there are substantial opportunities to increase productivity and income through more efficient utilization of productive resources The RTS parameter (0.931) was obtained from the summation of the coefficients of the estimated inputs (elasticities) which indicates that maize production in the study area was in the Stage II of the production surface. Depreciation, hired labour, family labour, farm size and quantity of seed are the major farm specific variables that influence efficiency of the maize farmers while farming experience, extension access, land acquisition and access to credit contributed to technical inefficiency. It is therefore suggested that effort should be geared towards increasing the technical manpower of farmers, land redistribution policy that will increase the farm size of farmers in order to boost maize production should be encouraged; and in order to increase farmers’ profit, variable costs have to be cut down, since the bulk of the variable cost is incurred on labour, which would lead to greater gross margins and hence the profitability of the enterprise.
Highlights
Agriculture belongs to the real sector of Nigerian economy
The study revealed that male farmers dominated maize production with 76.7% of them actively involved with majority of them married and relatively old people with about 78.7 percent having ages more than or equal to 50 years but with large household size
45.8% of the respondents had less than 4 hectares of land as farm size, indicating that larger percent of maize farmers in the study area operated on smallmedium scale
Summary
Agriculture belongs to the real sector of Nigerian economy. It is characterized by a multitude of small scale farmers scattered over wide expanse of land area, with small holding ranging from 0.05 to 3.0 hectares per farm land, rudimentary farm systems, low capitalization and low yield per hectare. Agriculture is of great importance to the Nigerian economy as it engages about 70% of the labour force and 40% of the Gross Domestic Product [6]. It provides food for the teeming population and raw materials for industries. S. et al.: Analysis of Productive Resources of Maize Crop Among Farming Households in Ekiti State, Nigeria. An increase in efficiency in arable crop production could present a ray of hope and could lead to an improvement in the welfare of the farmer and a reduction in their poverty level and food insecurity. These categories of farmer are bedeviled with natural hazards such as fire outbreak, flood, drought, diseases and pest attacks which often reduce agricultural productivity over the years [14]
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