Socioeconomic Factors Influencing Smallholder Irrigated Rice Farmers Participation in Contract Farming in Kano River Irrigation Project, Kano State, Nigeria
Abstract
This study was designed to determine the socioeconomic factors influencing smallholder irrigated rice farmers’ participation in contract farming in Kano River Irrigation Project (KRIP), Kano State, Nigeria. A multi-stage sampling procedure was used to select 254 respondents for the study comprising of 127 contract farmers and another 127 non-contract farmers. Both inferential and descriptive statistics were used in the analysis of data. The mean age of respondents was found to be 35yrs, 89.8% were males, and 10.2% females. The mean household size was 6 persons with a mean landholding of 1.3ha. Factors influencing contract rice farming participation include; age which had a coefficient value of 0.043 and significant at 5%, rice farm size had a coefficient value of 1.037 and significant at 10%. It was therefore concluded that some socioeconomic characteristics affect the ability of farmer’s participation in contract rice farming. The study recommends that pro-contract rice farming policies that might have a long term positive effect on the farmers socioeconomics should be developed.
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