Abstract: Food crisis in Nigeria has been on the rise with the worsening effect on food security ... more Abstract: Food crisis in Nigeria has been on the rise with the worsening effect on food security situation in the country. Studies have focused on state sectoral or zonal investigation of households' food demand in Nigeria. However, investigation of households' food demand has received little attention at the National level, necessitating this study. Cross sectional data obtained from the Nigerian Living Standard Survey (NLSS) of 2004 by National Bureau of Statistics was employed. A total of 18,861 households units with relevant variables of interest were used. Prices of different food groups were obtained from Prices of Selected food Items Problem Statement The global food crisis ("silent Tsunami" or the "perfect storm") affects 2 billion people in the world, of which currently 850 million people face extreme hunger and 25,000 people die each day from starvation. Of the 37 most affected countries, 21 are in Africa. More than 95% of chronically undernou...
The study examined poverty level among farmers in rural areas of Oyo State, Nigeria. A multi-stag... more The study examined poverty level among farmers in rural areas of Oyo State, Nigeria. A multi-stage sampling technique was used in collecting data from 180 farming households during the rainy and dry season. The analysis shows that the incidence of poverty is 32.7% and 40.6% during the rainy and dry seasons, respectively. Poverty rate is higher among older farmers with low level of education who are subsistence farmers with large members and who had no access to food preparation and modern farming technology. Poverty indices are higher during dry season than rainy season. To reduce poverty among farmers, farming households should be targeted with education, birth-control programme, time saving technology and cash transfer programs to bridge the dry season consumption deficit.
This study engaged both Stochastic Frontier and Data Envelopment Analyses in estimating technical... more This study engaged both Stochastic Frontier and Data Envelopment Analyses in estimating technical efficiency and productivity growth respectively among rice farmers in Nigeria. The underlying data for the study were derived from the households’ panel survey conducted by NISER in collaboration with Lund University, Sweden under the African Food Crisis studies carried out in 2002 and 2007, respectively. The Stochastic frontier t technical efficiency analysis showed that all coefficients of the explanatory variables were significant between 1 and 5% but elasticity estimates showed the inelasticity of output with respect to land, labour, seed and fertiliser and a high gamma value of 0.835, signifying that much of the variation in the composite error term was due to inefficiency. The mean technical efficiency of the farmers under the assumption of constant returns to scale were estimated to be 0.66 and 0.53 respectively for periods 1 and 2 which indicated that the farmers fell short of t...
The study evaluated the effect of microcredit on small scale entrepreneurs in Oyo state, Nigeria ... more The study evaluated the effect of microcredit on small scale entrepreneurs in Oyo state, Nigeria and its implication on their welfare. Primary data were collected with the aid of well-structured questionnaire. Multi-stage sampling technique was adopted in selecting 200 respondents comprising agriculture and non-agriculture small businesses within Ibadan metropolis. The data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Foster Greer Thorbecke and binary logit regression. Results of analysis of respondents' access to credit revealed that more than two-third (69%) of the respondents did not have access to microcredit while only 31% had access to microcredit. On the implication of micro-credit access to welfare of the respondents, the study revealed that poverty incidence was higher (P0=0.4876) among respondents that did not use microcredit than those with access (P0=0.4419). This suggests that incidence of poverty declines with access to microcredit but this is only by a sm...
This paper examines the perception and adaptation to climate change by yam based farmers in Edo S... more This paper examines the perception and adaptation to climate change by yam based farmers in Edo State. The study employed primary data collected using structured questionnaire from the sampled yam based farmers in the study area. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and Multinomial Logit Model. Empirical results revealed that 67.20% of farmers perceived a decrease in precipitation while 43.20% ranked the effect of decrease in precipitation as not severe on yam production in the study area. The result also showed that 72% of the farmers utilized mulching as coping strategy for climate change effect on yam production while 13% of the farmers did not apply any adaptation method. The Multinomial Logit Model revealed that age and household size influenced (p< 0.05) the probability of adopting yam varieties as coping strategy. Access to credit facilities and extension services are the determinants (p< 0.05) of adopting mulching as coping strategy. It is recommended that s...
Les moteurs de l'efficacite technique dans la transformation du manioc au Nigeria : implicati... more Les moteurs de l'efficacite technique dans la transformation du manioc au Nigeria : implications pour une commercialisation du secteur alimentaire La plupart des politiques agricoles au Nigeria ont pour objectif d’integrer les petits agriculteurs dans l'economie de marche. Au cours de la derniere decennie, le Nigeria a connu un important apport de capitaux prives et publics dans la promotion des unites de transformation du manioc de petite echelle. Cette etude utilise la fonction de frontiere stochastique et des donnees d’entrees/sorties pour mesurer et expliquer les efficacites techniques (ET) de 274 entreprises de petite et moyenne taille. L'etude a montre que les entreprises de transformation du manioc ont une efficacite technique moyenne de 43% t, indiquant qu'une tres grande proportion de la valeur de la production (57%) est perdue en raison des inefficacites propres aux entreprises. Les entreprises de transformation de la zone du Centre-Nord ont enregistre l’ef...
Using the Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) framework, this paper showed how urban sector wage... more Using the Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) framework, this paper showed how urban sector wage rigidities such as the minimum wage policy can impact the rural economy and the welfare of households. A static CGE model of the Nigerian economy was developed to examine the effects of 12%, 30% and 68% minimum wage increases in Nigeria on the economy and the welfare of households, especially informal sector rural households. CGE simulations revealed that with a 12% increase in the minimum wage, domestic output declined in all sectors except the crude oil and mining sector. Similar impacts were observed with 30% and 68% increases but with greater changes. There was also a general decline in labour employment due to its higher price. Most macroeconomic aggregates fell, including GDP and real GDP. Household savings, however, increased in all cases but there were huge inflationary pressures represented by increases in the price index in all three scenarios. Investments also fell, while hou...
This study examined the adoption of improved post-harvest technology for cassava processing and i... more This study examined the adoption of improved post-harvest technology for cassava processing and its impacts on welfare of Smallholder cassava starch processors. The study relied mainly on cross-sectional data collected through a survey conducted in the forest and guinea savanna zones of Nigeria. A multi-stage sampling procedure was used in selecting a sample frame of five hundred and seventy (570) cassava starch processors. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, logit model and the propensity score matching method. Smallholder cassava starch processing in Nigeria is mostly a female enterprise. The average age of the processors was 48 years, with an average household size of six. The decision to use improved technology is explained by number of income earners in the household, years of processing experience, cost of acquiring technology and the capacity of technology. This study found a positive and significant impact of improved post-harvest technology on output and income...
Rapid urban growth changes the composition as well as diversification of the food consumed among ... more Rapid urban growth changes the composition as well as diversification of the food consumed among urban households. Achieving food security in the midst of rapid urbanization require understanding how urban and food consumption intertwined. Thus this paper uses combined measure of food security to determine urban household food security status as influenced by extent of urbanization in Nigeria. Results show that urban effect generated through urbanicity index using principal component analysis revealed that most households were in low urban category. On the average, most urban household had diverse diet. However, combining per capita expenditure and dietary diversity index as measure of household food security revealed different level of food security status. Multinomial logit regression results reveals that gender of household head, employment status, educational status, household income, occupational status and urbanicity index significantly determine the probability of urban house...
The aim of the paper is to evaluate the impact of value-webs as an innovation in agricultural pro... more The aim of the paper is to evaluate the impact of value-webs as an innovation in agricultural production on welfare of cassava smallholders in Nigeria. The estimation procedure involved the alternative process of multivalued treatment models when treatment units have multiple values. The study thus extends previous impact studies which focused on estimating causal effects from binary treatment units. The treatment units were determined from the extent of utilization of cassava which informed the classification of households into value-web groups. Value-web is defined here as a measure of joint linkages of product chains within the cassava system. The determinants of the choice of utilization were also estimated. Results show that value-web groups include non-cassava based households; low-level, middle-level and high-level value web groups at 32.4%, 34.1%, 24.4% and 9.1%, respectively. Resource allocation to cassava, farming experience, and access to improved cassava varieties increa...
This study links food insecurity status of farming households in the study area to their income d... more This study links food insecurity status of farming households in the study area to their income diversification strategies. Data for the study were collected from 400 farming households in Osun State of the southwestern Nigeria. Households were classified into four categories based on how they obtain a living. Descriptive statistics, Cost of Calorie Function (COC) and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) were used to analyze the data. Income diversification strategies of the households involved – combinations of crop production with livestock enterprises; crop production with off farm activities; off farm activities with livestock enterprises and crop production only; at 60.0%, 10.0%, 8.0%, and 22.0% of households respectively. Income diversification strategies have significant influence on food insecurity at x2<0.001. Households that depend more on off farm income ranked the best, having the highest surplus index of 0.71 and the least shortfall index of 0.21 which indicate that the food...
This study contributes to the agricultural productivity literature in developing countries and Ni... more This study contributes to the agricultural productivity literature in developing countries and Nigeria especially by quantifying the level of efficiency for sample of rice farmers from North Central Zone of Nigeria. A stochastic efficiency decomposition frontier analysis was used to derive technical efficiency measures separately for rice under two production systems (upland and lowland systems). Average economic efficiency of 51.9 % and 55.4 % found for up land and lowland rice farmers respectively suggests that there is room for productivity gain for farms in the sample through better use of available resources given the state of technology. Gains in productivity growth have become increasingly important to Nigerians as demand for rice continue to increase due to population increase. Although, all the socio-economic variables tested against efficiency were significant at one level or the other there was no clear strategy of improving the relationship between them. One possible exp...
Abstract: Food crisis in Nigeria has been on the rise with the worsening effect on food security ... more Abstract: Food crisis in Nigeria has been on the rise with the worsening effect on food security situation in the country. Studies have focused on state sectoral or zonal investigation of households' food demand in Nigeria. However, investigation of households' food demand has received little attention at the National level, necessitating this study. Cross sectional data obtained from the Nigerian Living Standard Survey (NLSS) of 2004 by National Bureau of Statistics was employed. A total of 18,861 households units with relevant variables of interest were used. Prices of different food groups were obtained from Prices of Selected food Items Problem Statement The global food crisis ("silent Tsunami" or the "perfect storm") affects 2 billion people in the world, of which currently 850 million people face extreme hunger and 25,000 people die each day from starvation. Of the 37 most affected countries, 21 are in Africa. More than 95% of chronically undernou...
The study examined poverty level among farmers in rural areas of Oyo State, Nigeria. A multi-stag... more The study examined poverty level among farmers in rural areas of Oyo State, Nigeria. A multi-stage sampling technique was used in collecting data from 180 farming households during the rainy and dry season. The analysis shows that the incidence of poverty is 32.7% and 40.6% during the rainy and dry seasons, respectively. Poverty rate is higher among older farmers with low level of education who are subsistence farmers with large members and who had no access to food preparation and modern farming technology. Poverty indices are higher during dry season than rainy season. To reduce poverty among farmers, farming households should be targeted with education, birth-control programme, time saving technology and cash transfer programs to bridge the dry season consumption deficit.
This study engaged both Stochastic Frontier and Data Envelopment Analyses in estimating technical... more This study engaged both Stochastic Frontier and Data Envelopment Analyses in estimating technical efficiency and productivity growth respectively among rice farmers in Nigeria. The underlying data for the study were derived from the households’ panel survey conducted by NISER in collaboration with Lund University, Sweden under the African Food Crisis studies carried out in 2002 and 2007, respectively. The Stochastic frontier t technical efficiency analysis showed that all coefficients of the explanatory variables were significant between 1 and 5% but elasticity estimates showed the inelasticity of output with respect to land, labour, seed and fertiliser and a high gamma value of 0.835, signifying that much of the variation in the composite error term was due to inefficiency. The mean technical efficiency of the farmers under the assumption of constant returns to scale were estimated to be 0.66 and 0.53 respectively for periods 1 and 2 which indicated that the farmers fell short of t...
The study evaluated the effect of microcredit on small scale entrepreneurs in Oyo state, Nigeria ... more The study evaluated the effect of microcredit on small scale entrepreneurs in Oyo state, Nigeria and its implication on their welfare. Primary data were collected with the aid of well-structured questionnaire. Multi-stage sampling technique was adopted in selecting 200 respondents comprising agriculture and non-agriculture small businesses within Ibadan metropolis. The data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Foster Greer Thorbecke and binary logit regression. Results of analysis of respondents' access to credit revealed that more than two-third (69%) of the respondents did not have access to microcredit while only 31% had access to microcredit. On the implication of micro-credit access to welfare of the respondents, the study revealed that poverty incidence was higher (P0=0.4876) among respondents that did not use microcredit than those with access (P0=0.4419). This suggests that incidence of poverty declines with access to microcredit but this is only by a sm...
Les moteurs de l'efficacite technique dans la transformation du manioc au Nigeria : implicati... more Les moteurs de l'efficacite technique dans la transformation du manioc au Nigeria : implications pour une commercialisation du secteur alimentaire La plupart des politiques agricoles au Nigeria ont pour objectif d’integrer les petits agriculteurs dans l'economie de marche. Au cours de la derniere decennie, le Nigeria a connu un important apport de capitaux prives et publics dans la promotion des unites de transformation du manioc de petite echelle. Cette etude utilise la fonction de frontiere stochastique et des donnees d’entrees/sorties pour mesurer et expliquer les efficacites techniques (ET) de 274 entreprises de petite et moyenne taille. L'etude a montre que les entreprises de transformation du manioc ont une efficacite technique moyenne de 43% t, indiquant qu'une tres grande proportion de la valeur de la production (57%) est perdue en raison des inefficacites propres aux entreprises. Les entreprises de transformation de la zone du Centre-Nord ont enregistre l’ef...
The Nigerian rice sector and WARDA has adopted several development initiatives in the past years ... more The Nigerian rice sector and WARDA has adopted several development initiatives in the past years towards increasing development and production of improved rice varieties. However, the country has not been able to produce enough rice for her teeming population and as such has to be bridged by rice imports. Therefore, factors influencing awareness and adoption of improved rice varieties were examined. Data collected from the rice baseline field survey designed by AfricaRice from Nasarawa and Benue states in 2013 was used. Multistage sampling technique was used to obtain a sample of 149 rice farmers. Probit regression and heckman two-stage sample selection model was then used to analyze the data. Results revealed that 95.3% of the sampled households were aware of improved rice varieties while 87.25% had grown at least one of the improved rice varieties at the time of visit. In the awareness model, access to media was positive and statistically significant at 5%. Access to credit, access to media, farm size, gender, household size and agricultural income significantly influence the probability and intensity of adoption in the study area. Credit facilities should be provided at no collaterals with very low interest rates for adoption of improved rice varieties in the study area.
The study examined the role government policy and agricultural output play in national saving in ... more The study examined the role government policy and agricultural output play in national saving in Nigeria, time series data on national savings, agricultural GDP, government policy–related variables as well as other relevant socio-demographic variables were sourced for the period of 1981 – 2012 and analyzed. The Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) test for stationarity, the trace and maximum Eigen statistics for cointegrating vectors as well as the cointegration regression were used at various stages for the analysis. It was found that government’s recurrent expenditure, money supply and population all positively affect national saving. On the other hand, debt servicing by the government, unemployment rate and importation of goods all showed negative relationships with national saving. It was thus recommended that government recurrent expenditure which empowers the populace economically should be given priority during national budget implementation, that unnecessary contraction of money su...
The study employed the Johansen (1988) and the Johansen and Juselius (1990) multivariate maximum ... more The study employed the Johansen (1988) and the Johansen and Juselius (1990) multivariate maximum likelihood method within a Vector Autoregressive framework to explore the impact of structural reforms on the level of real output in Nigeria. We fit the equation separately for two sub-samples, the pre-reform and the market-reform periods, to enable comparisons of the outcomes under alternative policy regimes. We further estimate the model using data that covered the entire sample period to evaluate the total effects and include a dummy variable to capture the impact of the policy shift. The Johansen cointegration test confirms the existence of long-run equilibrium relationships among the variables. Various diagnostic tests conducted confirmed the robustness of the results. The Chow Breakpoint test rejected the null hypothesis, which states that the real output function remained the same before and after structural reforms. The results of our parsimonious models suggest that real exchan...
Abstract: Food crisis in Nigeria has been on the rise with the worsening effect on food security ... more Abstract: Food crisis in Nigeria has been on the rise with the worsening effect on food security situation in the country. Studies have focused on state sectoral or zonal investigation of households' food demand in Nigeria. However, investigation of households' food demand has received little attention at the National level, necessitating this study. Cross sectional data obtained from the Nigerian Living Standard Survey (NLSS) of 2004 by National Bureau of Statistics was employed. A total of 18,861 households units with relevant variables of interest were used. Prices of different food groups were obtained from Prices of Selected food Items Problem Statement The global food crisis ("silent Tsunami" or the "perfect storm") affects 2 billion people in the world, of which currently 850 million people face extreme hunger and 25,000 people die each day from starvation. Of the 37 most affected countries, 21 are in Africa. More than 95% of chronically undernou...
The study examined poverty level among farmers in rural areas of Oyo State, Nigeria. A multi-stag... more The study examined poverty level among farmers in rural areas of Oyo State, Nigeria. A multi-stage sampling technique was used in collecting data from 180 farming households during the rainy and dry season. The analysis shows that the incidence of poverty is 32.7% and 40.6% during the rainy and dry seasons, respectively. Poverty rate is higher among older farmers with low level of education who are subsistence farmers with large members and who had no access to food preparation and modern farming technology. Poverty indices are higher during dry season than rainy season. To reduce poverty among farmers, farming households should be targeted with education, birth-control programme, time saving technology and cash transfer programs to bridge the dry season consumption deficit.
This study engaged both Stochastic Frontier and Data Envelopment Analyses in estimating technical... more This study engaged both Stochastic Frontier and Data Envelopment Analyses in estimating technical efficiency and productivity growth respectively among rice farmers in Nigeria. The underlying data for the study were derived from the households’ panel survey conducted by NISER in collaboration with Lund University, Sweden under the African Food Crisis studies carried out in 2002 and 2007, respectively. The Stochastic frontier t technical efficiency analysis showed that all coefficients of the explanatory variables were significant between 1 and 5% but elasticity estimates showed the inelasticity of output with respect to land, labour, seed and fertiliser and a high gamma value of 0.835, signifying that much of the variation in the composite error term was due to inefficiency. The mean technical efficiency of the farmers under the assumption of constant returns to scale were estimated to be 0.66 and 0.53 respectively for periods 1 and 2 which indicated that the farmers fell short of t...
The study evaluated the effect of microcredit on small scale entrepreneurs in Oyo state, Nigeria ... more The study evaluated the effect of microcredit on small scale entrepreneurs in Oyo state, Nigeria and its implication on their welfare. Primary data were collected with the aid of well-structured questionnaire. Multi-stage sampling technique was adopted in selecting 200 respondents comprising agriculture and non-agriculture small businesses within Ibadan metropolis. The data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Foster Greer Thorbecke and binary logit regression. Results of analysis of respondents' access to credit revealed that more than two-third (69%) of the respondents did not have access to microcredit while only 31% had access to microcredit. On the implication of micro-credit access to welfare of the respondents, the study revealed that poverty incidence was higher (P0=0.4876) among respondents that did not use microcredit than those with access (P0=0.4419). This suggests that incidence of poverty declines with access to microcredit but this is only by a sm...
This paper examines the perception and adaptation to climate change by yam based farmers in Edo S... more This paper examines the perception and adaptation to climate change by yam based farmers in Edo State. The study employed primary data collected using structured questionnaire from the sampled yam based farmers in the study area. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and Multinomial Logit Model. Empirical results revealed that 67.20% of farmers perceived a decrease in precipitation while 43.20% ranked the effect of decrease in precipitation as not severe on yam production in the study area. The result also showed that 72% of the farmers utilized mulching as coping strategy for climate change effect on yam production while 13% of the farmers did not apply any adaptation method. The Multinomial Logit Model revealed that age and household size influenced (p< 0.05) the probability of adopting yam varieties as coping strategy. Access to credit facilities and extension services are the determinants (p< 0.05) of adopting mulching as coping strategy. It is recommended that s...
Les moteurs de l'efficacite technique dans la transformation du manioc au Nigeria : implicati... more Les moteurs de l'efficacite technique dans la transformation du manioc au Nigeria : implications pour une commercialisation du secteur alimentaire La plupart des politiques agricoles au Nigeria ont pour objectif d’integrer les petits agriculteurs dans l'economie de marche. Au cours de la derniere decennie, le Nigeria a connu un important apport de capitaux prives et publics dans la promotion des unites de transformation du manioc de petite echelle. Cette etude utilise la fonction de frontiere stochastique et des donnees d’entrees/sorties pour mesurer et expliquer les efficacites techniques (ET) de 274 entreprises de petite et moyenne taille. L'etude a montre que les entreprises de transformation du manioc ont une efficacite technique moyenne de 43% t, indiquant qu'une tres grande proportion de la valeur de la production (57%) est perdue en raison des inefficacites propres aux entreprises. Les entreprises de transformation de la zone du Centre-Nord ont enregistre l’ef...
Using the Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) framework, this paper showed how urban sector wage... more Using the Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) framework, this paper showed how urban sector wage rigidities such as the minimum wage policy can impact the rural economy and the welfare of households. A static CGE model of the Nigerian economy was developed to examine the effects of 12%, 30% and 68% minimum wage increases in Nigeria on the economy and the welfare of households, especially informal sector rural households. CGE simulations revealed that with a 12% increase in the minimum wage, domestic output declined in all sectors except the crude oil and mining sector. Similar impacts were observed with 30% and 68% increases but with greater changes. There was also a general decline in labour employment due to its higher price. Most macroeconomic aggregates fell, including GDP and real GDP. Household savings, however, increased in all cases but there were huge inflationary pressures represented by increases in the price index in all three scenarios. Investments also fell, while hou...
This study examined the adoption of improved post-harvest technology for cassava processing and i... more This study examined the adoption of improved post-harvest technology for cassava processing and its impacts on welfare of Smallholder cassava starch processors. The study relied mainly on cross-sectional data collected through a survey conducted in the forest and guinea savanna zones of Nigeria. A multi-stage sampling procedure was used in selecting a sample frame of five hundred and seventy (570) cassava starch processors. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, logit model and the propensity score matching method. Smallholder cassava starch processing in Nigeria is mostly a female enterprise. The average age of the processors was 48 years, with an average household size of six. The decision to use improved technology is explained by number of income earners in the household, years of processing experience, cost of acquiring technology and the capacity of technology. This study found a positive and significant impact of improved post-harvest technology on output and income...
Rapid urban growth changes the composition as well as diversification of the food consumed among ... more Rapid urban growth changes the composition as well as diversification of the food consumed among urban households. Achieving food security in the midst of rapid urbanization require understanding how urban and food consumption intertwined. Thus this paper uses combined measure of food security to determine urban household food security status as influenced by extent of urbanization in Nigeria. Results show that urban effect generated through urbanicity index using principal component analysis revealed that most households were in low urban category. On the average, most urban household had diverse diet. However, combining per capita expenditure and dietary diversity index as measure of household food security revealed different level of food security status. Multinomial logit regression results reveals that gender of household head, employment status, educational status, household income, occupational status and urbanicity index significantly determine the probability of urban house...
The aim of the paper is to evaluate the impact of value-webs as an innovation in agricultural pro... more The aim of the paper is to evaluate the impact of value-webs as an innovation in agricultural production on welfare of cassava smallholders in Nigeria. The estimation procedure involved the alternative process of multivalued treatment models when treatment units have multiple values. The study thus extends previous impact studies which focused on estimating causal effects from binary treatment units. The treatment units were determined from the extent of utilization of cassava which informed the classification of households into value-web groups. Value-web is defined here as a measure of joint linkages of product chains within the cassava system. The determinants of the choice of utilization were also estimated. Results show that value-web groups include non-cassava based households; low-level, middle-level and high-level value web groups at 32.4%, 34.1%, 24.4% and 9.1%, respectively. Resource allocation to cassava, farming experience, and access to improved cassava varieties increa...
This study links food insecurity status of farming households in the study area to their income d... more This study links food insecurity status of farming households in the study area to their income diversification strategies. Data for the study were collected from 400 farming households in Osun State of the southwestern Nigeria. Households were classified into four categories based on how they obtain a living. Descriptive statistics, Cost of Calorie Function (COC) and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) were used to analyze the data. Income diversification strategies of the households involved – combinations of crop production with livestock enterprises; crop production with off farm activities; off farm activities with livestock enterprises and crop production only; at 60.0%, 10.0%, 8.0%, and 22.0% of households respectively. Income diversification strategies have significant influence on food insecurity at x2<0.001. Households that depend more on off farm income ranked the best, having the highest surplus index of 0.71 and the least shortfall index of 0.21 which indicate that the food...
This study contributes to the agricultural productivity literature in developing countries and Ni... more This study contributes to the agricultural productivity literature in developing countries and Nigeria especially by quantifying the level of efficiency for sample of rice farmers from North Central Zone of Nigeria. A stochastic efficiency decomposition frontier analysis was used to derive technical efficiency measures separately for rice under two production systems (upland and lowland systems). Average economic efficiency of 51.9 % and 55.4 % found for up land and lowland rice farmers respectively suggests that there is room for productivity gain for farms in the sample through better use of available resources given the state of technology. Gains in productivity growth have become increasingly important to Nigerians as demand for rice continue to increase due to population increase. Although, all the socio-economic variables tested against efficiency were significant at one level or the other there was no clear strategy of improving the relationship between them. One possible exp...
Abstract: Food crisis in Nigeria has been on the rise with the worsening effect on food security ... more Abstract: Food crisis in Nigeria has been on the rise with the worsening effect on food security situation in the country. Studies have focused on state sectoral or zonal investigation of households' food demand in Nigeria. However, investigation of households' food demand has received little attention at the National level, necessitating this study. Cross sectional data obtained from the Nigerian Living Standard Survey (NLSS) of 2004 by National Bureau of Statistics was employed. A total of 18,861 households units with relevant variables of interest were used. Prices of different food groups were obtained from Prices of Selected food Items Problem Statement The global food crisis ("silent Tsunami" or the "perfect storm") affects 2 billion people in the world, of which currently 850 million people face extreme hunger and 25,000 people die each day from starvation. Of the 37 most affected countries, 21 are in Africa. More than 95% of chronically undernou...
The study examined poverty level among farmers in rural areas of Oyo State, Nigeria. A multi-stag... more The study examined poverty level among farmers in rural areas of Oyo State, Nigeria. A multi-stage sampling technique was used in collecting data from 180 farming households during the rainy and dry season. The analysis shows that the incidence of poverty is 32.7% and 40.6% during the rainy and dry seasons, respectively. Poverty rate is higher among older farmers with low level of education who are subsistence farmers with large members and who had no access to food preparation and modern farming technology. Poverty indices are higher during dry season than rainy season. To reduce poverty among farmers, farming households should be targeted with education, birth-control programme, time saving technology and cash transfer programs to bridge the dry season consumption deficit.
This study engaged both Stochastic Frontier and Data Envelopment Analyses in estimating technical... more This study engaged both Stochastic Frontier and Data Envelopment Analyses in estimating technical efficiency and productivity growth respectively among rice farmers in Nigeria. The underlying data for the study were derived from the households’ panel survey conducted by NISER in collaboration with Lund University, Sweden under the African Food Crisis studies carried out in 2002 and 2007, respectively. The Stochastic frontier t technical efficiency analysis showed that all coefficients of the explanatory variables were significant between 1 and 5% but elasticity estimates showed the inelasticity of output with respect to land, labour, seed and fertiliser and a high gamma value of 0.835, signifying that much of the variation in the composite error term was due to inefficiency. The mean technical efficiency of the farmers under the assumption of constant returns to scale were estimated to be 0.66 and 0.53 respectively for periods 1 and 2 which indicated that the farmers fell short of t...
The study evaluated the effect of microcredit on small scale entrepreneurs in Oyo state, Nigeria ... more The study evaluated the effect of microcredit on small scale entrepreneurs in Oyo state, Nigeria and its implication on their welfare. Primary data were collected with the aid of well-structured questionnaire. Multi-stage sampling technique was adopted in selecting 200 respondents comprising agriculture and non-agriculture small businesses within Ibadan metropolis. The data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Foster Greer Thorbecke and binary logit regression. Results of analysis of respondents' access to credit revealed that more than two-third (69%) of the respondents did not have access to microcredit while only 31% had access to microcredit. On the implication of micro-credit access to welfare of the respondents, the study revealed that poverty incidence was higher (P0=0.4876) among respondents that did not use microcredit than those with access (P0=0.4419). This suggests that incidence of poverty declines with access to microcredit but this is only by a sm...
Les moteurs de l'efficacite technique dans la transformation du manioc au Nigeria : implicati... more Les moteurs de l'efficacite technique dans la transformation du manioc au Nigeria : implications pour une commercialisation du secteur alimentaire La plupart des politiques agricoles au Nigeria ont pour objectif d’integrer les petits agriculteurs dans l'economie de marche. Au cours de la derniere decennie, le Nigeria a connu un important apport de capitaux prives et publics dans la promotion des unites de transformation du manioc de petite echelle. Cette etude utilise la fonction de frontiere stochastique et des donnees d’entrees/sorties pour mesurer et expliquer les efficacites techniques (ET) de 274 entreprises de petite et moyenne taille. L'etude a montre que les entreprises de transformation du manioc ont une efficacite technique moyenne de 43% t, indiquant qu'une tres grande proportion de la valeur de la production (57%) est perdue en raison des inefficacites propres aux entreprises. Les entreprises de transformation de la zone du Centre-Nord ont enregistre l’ef...
The Nigerian rice sector and WARDA has adopted several development initiatives in the past years ... more The Nigerian rice sector and WARDA has adopted several development initiatives in the past years towards increasing development and production of improved rice varieties. However, the country has not been able to produce enough rice for her teeming population and as such has to be bridged by rice imports. Therefore, factors influencing awareness and adoption of improved rice varieties were examined. Data collected from the rice baseline field survey designed by AfricaRice from Nasarawa and Benue states in 2013 was used. Multistage sampling technique was used to obtain a sample of 149 rice farmers. Probit regression and heckman two-stage sample selection model was then used to analyze the data. Results revealed that 95.3% of the sampled households were aware of improved rice varieties while 87.25% had grown at least one of the improved rice varieties at the time of visit. In the awareness model, access to media was positive and statistically significant at 5%. Access to credit, access to media, farm size, gender, household size and agricultural income significantly influence the probability and intensity of adoption in the study area. Credit facilities should be provided at no collaterals with very low interest rates for adoption of improved rice varieties in the study area.
The study examined the role government policy and agricultural output play in national saving in ... more The study examined the role government policy and agricultural output play in national saving in Nigeria, time series data on national savings, agricultural GDP, government policy–related variables as well as other relevant socio-demographic variables were sourced for the period of 1981 – 2012 and analyzed. The Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) test for stationarity, the trace and maximum Eigen statistics for cointegrating vectors as well as the cointegration regression were used at various stages for the analysis. It was found that government’s recurrent expenditure, money supply and population all positively affect national saving. On the other hand, debt servicing by the government, unemployment rate and importation of goods all showed negative relationships with national saving. It was thus recommended that government recurrent expenditure which empowers the populace economically should be given priority during national budget implementation, that unnecessary contraction of money su...
The study employed the Johansen (1988) and the Johansen and Juselius (1990) multivariate maximum ... more The study employed the Johansen (1988) and the Johansen and Juselius (1990) multivariate maximum likelihood method within a Vector Autoregressive framework to explore the impact of structural reforms on the level of real output in Nigeria. We fit the equation separately for two sub-samples, the pre-reform and the market-reform periods, to enable comparisons of the outcomes under alternative policy regimes. We further estimate the model using data that covered the entire sample period to evaluate the total effects and include a dummy variable to capture the impact of the policy shift. The Johansen cointegration test confirms the existence of long-run equilibrium relationships among the variables. Various diagnostic tests conducted confirmed the robustness of the results. The Chow Breakpoint test rejected the null hypothesis, which states that the real output function remained the same before and after structural reforms. The results of our parsimonious models suggest that real exchan...
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Papers by V. Okoruwa