Costs and returns of rice production among adopters and non adopters of recommended rice technologies in Ebonyi State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study examined the costs and returns of rice production among adopters and non-adopters of recommended rice technologies in  Ebonyi State of Nigeria. A multistage sampling procedure was employed to select a total of 144 respondents comprising 72 adopters and  72 non-adopters of the recommended rice technologies under the lowland and upland rice production systems. Questionnaire was  administered to the low land and upland rice farmers. Enterprise budget analysis and descriptive statistics such as mean, frequency,  percentages, etc were used for the data analysis. The results showed that the rice production by adopters of the recommended  technologies under the lowland and upland rice systems were very profitable. The result showed that every naira invested by the  adopters earned ₦2.02 and ₦1.57 per hectare as return on investment (ROI) for lowland and upland rice system respectively. On the other  hand, the rice enterprises by the non-adopters under the lowland and upland rice systems were merely marginally profitable with  the return on investment (ROI) of ₦1.14 and ₦1.13 per hectare respectively. The results of the sensitivity tests performed on the gross  margins of the rice enterprises indicated that the profitability index of the rice enterprises by adopters under the two major rice systems  in the area were very stable showing substantial capacity to profitably withstand unexpected changes in input and output prices. The  results also revealed that major constraints to increased rice production in the area include high cost of production inputs, undeveloped  or poorly developed lowland rice farms, farmers’ poor access to agricultural credit, absence of facilities for irrigated lowland rice system  among others. The study recommended policy measures aimed at increasing farmers’ access to essential rice production inputs and  agricultural credits.