Analysis of socio-economic factors influencing farmers’ adoption of improved maize production practices in Ikara Local Government Area of Kaduna State, Nigeria

Abstract

This study was conducted to analyze the socio-economic determinants of adoption of improved maize production practices (IMPPs) in Ikara Local Government Area of Kaduna State. Multi-stage sampling technique was employed to select 120  respondents for the study. The data were analyzed using frequency count, percentage, mean and inferential statistics (logit regression). Result of analysis revealed that most (42.5%) of the farmers were between 25 and 34 years of age, male (94.2%), married (58.3%) and had secondary education (65.8%). About 32% of the farmers had between 20 and 29 years of farming experience. Majority  (91.67%) of the maize farmers had farm size of 1-3ha. Land preparation (97.5%), manual weeding (89.2%) and seed dressing (75.8%) recorded the highest level of awareness among the IMPPs. Furthermore high cost of input (96.7%), inadequate capital (95.0%) and high cost of labour (88.3%) were the major constraints to adoption of IMPPs. Farm size was found to be significantly related to adoption of IMPPs at 1% level of probability with positive coefficient (0.620). It was therefore recommended that extension should assist to form farmers into functional  cooperatives, link them to available sources of credits so as to enable them take advantage of the available loan facilities.

Key words: Improved maize production practices, adoption, socio-economic, Kaduna State