Assessment of Good Agronomic Practices (GAP) in maize production among selected Community Based Advisors (CBAS) in Sabongari Local Government Area, Kaduna State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study examined the effects of Good Agronomic Practices (GAP) in maize production among Community Based Advisors (CBAs) in Sabongari Local Government Area, Kaduna state. Multistage sampling technique was employed to select 42 maize CBAs for the study. Data were collected from the respondents with the aid of field data questionnaire and were analysed using descriptive statistics. The result shows that mean age was 38 years. Most (61.9%) of the respondents were married and 52.3% of the CBAs had National Certificate of Education (NCE) as their highest educational qualification. Mean average maize output of the respondents from the demos (50 x 50 m) was 8.0 (100kg bag) and more than half (59.5%) of the CBAs participated in the mother demonstrations for commercial reasons. About 23.2% of the CBAs and 20.3% of the farmers ranked fertilizer application method of burying and correct spacing and sowing of maize seeds as 1st and 2nd respectively. The production data components assessed were cobs weight and yields of maize mother demonstrations technologies of AGRA/NAERLS plots along the farmers baby demonstrations was observed to have significantly outperformed the farmers baby plots by 44% and 27.3% per best two rows in an average cobs weight and grain yield. High costs of labour (54%) were the most important constraints associated with the maize production technologies by the CBAs. The CBAs the major technologies promoted were knowledge of GAP; spacing/sowing of seeds and fertilizer application methods which resulted in the AGRA mother Demo plots production of the heaviest average cobs weight more than the farmers’ baby demos plots. The project should encourage more women participation and policy focus on measures for the provision of simple mechanized tools and labour savings devices to address the high labour costs.