This work was carried out as a collaborative effort among all the authors. YLI conceptualized the idea of the work, constructed the data collection instrument, analyzed the data and did the first reporting. AAI collected the data. DBB handled the data entry and assisted in the review. BOO provided the technical know-how, vetted the article and certified it for publication. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

This study analysed the economic efficiency of irrigated vegetable producers in Borno State, Nigeria. Multistage sampling technique was used to select the respondents. Structured survey questionnaires were used and administered to 300 respondents to obtain primary data. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data obtained. Descriptive statistics used were mean, frequency and percentage. The inferential statistics used was stochastic frontier cost function to analyze the level and determinants of economic inefficiency in the studied enterprises. The result of the socio-economic indicated that almost all (99.7 percent) of the respondents were male with 45.9 percent of them falling on the age range between 41-50 years. About 46 percent of the respondents had household size ranging between 6-10 persons. The result

This study assessed rice farmers’ perceived effectiveness of adaptation strategies to climate change in Jigawa State, Nigeria. Multi-stage sampling procedure was used to select 183 respondents from whom data were collected using questionnaires. Data were summarised using descriptive statistics, Chi-square, and Pearson Correlation. Majority of the respondents were males (98%), married (90%) and had formal education (66.1%) with a mean age of 41 years. On the overall, more than half (56.3%) of the respondents perceived the effectiveness level of adaptation strategies to climate change to be low, whereas 43.7% perceived it to be high. Insufficient farm credit, high cost of raw materials, inadequate capital, high cost of labour, limited access to land and inadequate information on weather were the main constraints to adaptation to climate change. The inferential analysis revealed that years of farming experience (r = 0.172, p = 0.020), membership of cooperative (χ 2 = 4.207, p = 0.047) and level of education (χ 2 = 9.570, p = 0.023) and extension contact (χ 2 = 14.270, p = 0.000) were significantly associated with respondents’ perceived effectiveness of adaptation strategies to climate change. Efforts should be made to sensitise farmers on the efficacy, appropriateness and applicability of adaptation strategies to foster favourable perception that will trigger positive attitude and subsequent adoption of the strategies where applicable. Government should implement policies that support farmers’ access to credit facilities that is intended to help enhance farmers’ capacity to build resilience. Farmers should be encouraged to take up membership of farm base associations so as to enjoy the benefits therein.

This study examined the scale efficiency of rice production among beneficiaries of anchor borrowers programme (ABP) in Adamawa State, Nigeria. Multistage random sampling was employed to select respondents for the study. Structured questionnaires were the instruments used for data collection. A sample of 139 farmers was used for the study. Percentages, means, frequency, ranking, and data envelopment analysis were the analytical tools employed. The results of the socioeconomic characteristics of the respondents revealed that the majority (76.3%) of them was headed by males; most (61.1%) were within the ages of 21-40 years. Results from the data envelopment analysis showed that mean scale efficiency observed was 59%, out of the rice farms studied; 78% were scale inefficient as they operated under increased return to scale (IRS) and decreased return to scale (DRS) assumptions and therefore, operated at stage I and stage III of the production process, respectively. The major constraints faced by rice farmers in the study area were identified among others to be prevalence of pests and diseases, bad roads, and high cost of labour. Finally, it was recommended among others that policies geared towards investment in pest and disease control, good access roads to farms and means of transport towards achieving effective productivity and scale efficiency should be formulated.

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