Abstract
The household head characteristics of smallholder cassava farmers supplying raw materials to the major commercial starch processors in Nigeria were examined alongside their market participation categories. A multi-stage random sampling technique was used to select 96 farmers working in clusters in the eight cassava producing states. Data were analyzed using a combination of descriptive and inferential statistics, including the use of independent sample t-test technique to compare farmer's characteristics for the farmers' market participation categories. Results revealed that majority of the farmers were farming for subsistence with only 19.80% selling up to 50% of their farm produce as against 80.20% who sold less. Average mean values were found to be higher for the high market participants compared with the low participants for the age, farming experiences, education, farm size, gender, marital status, household size, training, season of harvesting and fertilizer use, but lower for use of credit, improved cassava variety, harvesting method, farming time devotion, and road access. Only farm size, gender and harvesting season at p<0.01 level and training at p<0.05 level were found to be statistically significant in distinguishing the high and low market participation categories. Policies and programmes aimed at promoting market participation among cassava farmers in Nigeria should be more impactful if directed at these significant factors.Int. J. Agril. Res. Innov. & Tech. 6 (2): 42-56, December, 2016
Highlights
The transformation of agriculture and agribusiness sector from subsistence to a specialized and market-oriented system has been adjudged of great importance to the developing countries with a high degree of dependence on agriculture for livelihoods and economic development (Wickramasinghe and Weinberger, 2013)
Negative is the correlation of market participation with household size, training, harvesting method, time devoted to farming, and road access
The results reveal that the 19 high market participants have an average farm size of 7.7 ha against the average of 2.03 ha for the 77 farmers in the low market participating group
Summary
The transformation of agriculture and agribusiness sector from subsistence to a specialized and market-oriented system has been adjudged of great importance to the developing countries with a high degree of dependence on agriculture for livelihoods and economic development (Wickramasinghe and Weinberger, 2013). The term market orientation is used widely in manufacturing to describe the extent to which a producer (including a producer of agribased products) is able to make far-reaching decisions on the three basic economic questions: Ojiako et al (2016) Household characteristics of smallholder farmers supplying cassava in Nigeria what to produce, how to produce, and how to market, using his or her knowledge of the market, especially the knowledge of the customers and market prices (Gebremedhin and Jaleta, 2012) It is defined as the degree of allocation of resources (land, labor, and capital and human services) to the production of agricultural produce directed to the market. It is both a cause and a consequence of economic development (Boughton et al, 2007)
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