This study was carried out to investigate resource use efficiency of women cassava producers in Ivo Local Government Area of Ebonyi State. A multi stage random sampling technique was used to select 120 women farmers in the local government in the year 2013. Percentage response was used to determine the farmers' socioeconomic characteristics, stochastic frontier and simultaneously, its' determinant were addressed using the maximum likelihood methods. The results of the study show that level of education, farming experience and extension contact were positive and significantly related to technical efficiency while credit access had inverse relationship with technical efficiency. The mean technical efficiency was 0.56, the maximum efficiency was 0.97, while the minimum was 0.23. Policies aimed at encouraging both new entrant and older farmers into farming through provision of improved production inputs and as well as increasing farmers' access to extension contact and educational programmes were therefore recommended.

The experiment was conducted to evaluate the carcass yield, organ characteristics and economics of production of West African Dwarf (WAD) goats fed cassava root sieviate-cassava leaf meal (CRSCLM) based diets as supplement to Panicum maximum using 36 WAD goats of about 8 to 10 months of age. Four diets T1, T2, T3, and T4, were formulated at the levels of 0%, 20%, 40% and 60% CRSCLM respectively, in a completely randomized design. Each animal received a designated treatment diet in the morning for 97 days. Feed offered was based on 3.5% body weight per day; the animals in addition were fed a kg wilted chopped Panicum maximum later in the day as basal diet to enhance rumination and chime chewing. Result on  carcass indices showed significant (p<0.05) influence on live weight at slaughter, empty carcass weight, warm carcass weight, dressing percentage, shoulder, leg, lion, end and shank with T4 having relatively best results. The dressing percentage was numerically (49.59%) best at T4. On the offal weights, head and full guts were significantly (p<0.05) improved for T4 and T1 goats. The organ characteristic proved the safety of using CRSCLM through the significantly (p<0.05) lower organ weights at T4 goats. Cost per kg feed, feed cost/weight gain and cost/benefit ratio were positive influenced (p<0.05) at T4 with expected income of ^4.79 per ^1 invested. It could therefore be concluded that WAD goats fed 60% CRSCLM had the best carcass and organ yields at a reduced feed cost.Keyword: WAD goat, Cassava leaf meal, cassava root sieviate, cost/benefit ratio

No abstract

Improved production technologies of sweet potato were jointly developed by International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) Ibadan and National Root Crops Research Institute (NRCRI) Umudike to eliminate constraints associated with farmers' use of local production technologies. Several years after introduction of the technologies to farmers, sweet potato production in Abia State has remained low and unimpressive despite the relevance of the crop in household food security. This paper therefore seeks to evaluate farmers' adoption of sweet potato production technologies in the state. A three-staged random sampling technique was employed to select 150 respondents from the three agricultural zones in the state. Data were collected from respondents with use of structured questionnaires and analyzed with descriptive statistics as well as multiple regression analysis. Result of analysis revealed an R 2 value of 0.280 indicating that 28% of variation in the adoption of the improved production technologies was accounted for by the variables considered in this study. Adoption of sweet potato production technologies was relatively at a medium level. Also, the result indicated that accruable farm income, farm size cultivated as well as sweet potato output was positively related to farmers' adoption of the technologies. Thus it was recommended that the mass media should be used to promote and popularize sweet potato and its improved production practices. Soft loans should be provided to farmers for more investment in sweet potato production since expectation of increased income would stimulate adoption of technologies.