Fadama Farming as an Environment Friendly and Viable Enterprise in Ondo State, Nigeria

Abstract

KEYWORDS Fadama. Regressor. Regressand. Resource-use ABSTRACT The study examined Fadama farming as a viable enterprise in Ondo State, Nigeria. It specifically examined the socio-economic characteristics of the respondents, determined the profitability of Fadama farming and examined the resource-use efficiency of fadama farming in the study area . A multistage sampling technique was used to select 120 Fadama farmers in the study area and structured questionnaire assisted with interview schedule was used to collect data from the respondents. Descriptive statistics, Gross margin and Production function analyses were used to analyse the data collected. The study revealed that 84.17% of the respondents were males and 95% of them were married. The result also showed that 97.5% of the respondents had farm size in the range of between 0.5 or less and1.5 hectares (ha) .The profitability analysis revealed that an average farmer incurred a variable cost of N 37524.66 but earned an average revenue of N67544.40. This indicates that an average farmer earned a gross margin of N 30,019.74 per annum suggesting that Fadama farming is a profitable venture in the study area. The result of the Production function showed that the regressors explained 65.8% in the variation of the regressand. A Return to Scale of 1.1478 obtained from the study showed that production was in the irrational zone (stage 1) of the production surface which indicates that farmers should increase the use of inputs which have direct influence on productivity to get an optimum economic return.