Determinants of productivity of farmland in Imo State

Abstract

The study analysed the determinants of productivity of farmland in Imo State, Nigeria. Primary data were collected using a set of structured  questionnaires from 60 food crop farmers who were selected through purposive and random sampling techniques. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and econometric tools. The results showed that majority of the respondents were young in their active years, with a mean age of 45 years, married, mostly females, had mean level education of 8 years and mostly farming as their major occupation. The results also showed that the food crop farmers had adequate labour force of a mean 7 persons per household and cultivated an average farm size of 1.06 hectares. The result of the productivity of farmland was 4.03, which showed high productivity. From the results also, the exponential function is the lead equation. The study concluded that farmlands in Imo state are productive and are determined by farm size, location, distance, quantity of fertilizer used, type of soil and duration of tenancy. The study advocated for food crop farmers to form a cooperative to enable them pool their resources together for gaining larger farmlands, fertilizer and other farm inputs.

Keywords: Farmland, Determinants, Productivity, Imo state.