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Climate change is perhaps the most serious environmental threat facing mankind worldwide. The study was designed to assess the knowledge, perception and adaptation strategies to climate change among farmers in southern agricultural zone of Nasarawa state. The specific objectives were to: identify the sources of information on climate change by respondents; assess their knowledge and perception of climate change phenomenon; identify adaptation strategies used and the factors militating against their adaptive capacity. A multi-stage sampling procedure was used to select a total of 150 respondents from the zone for the study. Data collection was through an interview schedule. Simple descriptive statistics such as frequency, percentage and mean scores were used to achieve the objectives. The null hypothesis was tested using a multiple regression model. The mean age of the respondents was 48 years. Majority (89.33%) of them were males while their average farming experience was 27 years. Most (38%) of the farmers in the area had no formal education and majority (76.7%) of them used inherited farmlands. Annual income level of the respondents was encouraging with a mean of N326, 461.30 per annum. Most (68%) of them relied on radio as their major source of information on climate change. The perceived indicators of climate change included excessive high temperatures, low and irregular rainfall pattern and low crop yields among others. Adaptation strategies used by the respondents included agro-forestry practices, crop diversification, use of organic manures, planting of early maturing and disease/drought resistant varieties. The major constraints to adaptation by the respondents were inadequate finance, poor infrastructures, unfavourable government/trade policies and poor technology. It was recommended that adult education programmes should be strengthened in the area to reduce illiteracy among farmers. Extension agents in the area should incorporate climate change information in their extension messages while government should intensify efforts in the area of integrated rural development.

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The study was conducted to analyze rice production under the Youth Empowerment Scheme (YES) in Nasarawa State, Nigeria. A multi-stage sampling technique was used to select 160 rice farmers made up of 80 participants of YES and 80 non participants. Primary data were collected through the use of structured questionnaires and personal interview. Data were subjected to descriptive statistics, linear regression and t-test. Majority of the respondents were less than 31 years and 31 to 40 years for participants and non participants, respectively. The respondents were mostly males and married with a minimum of secondary school education. Majority (62.5%) and (70%) of the participants and non participants, respectively were engaged in farming as main occupation, with less than 7 years farming experience and cultivating less than three hectares of land. Annual income and farm size had positive and significant effect on rice production with an R 2 value of 0.895. There was no significant difference (t=0.265 ; p> 0.05) between the yield of participants and non participants. Inadequate funds, high cost of agrochemicals, and inadequate extension services were the serious constraints to rice production. The study therefore, recommends that more efforts need to be put in place by government and all relevant stakeholders to provide adequate funds, agrochemicals and extension services.

The study examined allocative efficiency and its determinants among fadama food crop farmers in Adamawa State, Nigeria using the stochastic cost frontier approach. A single-stage estimation procedure was used where socio-economic variables were incorporated directly into the estimation of the cost frontier model. Data were collected from 160 randomly selected fadama farmers in the state using stratified and purposive sampling techniques. The estimated coefficients of the stochastic cost function revealed that cost of land, cost of agro-chemicals and cost of seeds were statistically significant at 1% level, cost of hired labour and cost of water were significant at 5% level, while cost of inorganic fertilizers was significant at 10% level. The estimated coefficient of the socio-economic variables in the inefficiency cost model shows that farming experience, education and age increases allocative efficiency in fadama food crop production. On the allocative efficiency levels, the result revealed that the farmers were efficient in the allocation of resources in fadama crop production. However, there is a scope for allocative efficiency improvement in the short-run Original Research Articlegiven the current state of technology of 21% and 58% for the average and least efficient farmer respectively. The study recommends the implementation of policies that would improve farmers' access to credit, timely distribution of productive inputs, subsidization of cost of agricultural inputs and the encouragement of research in fadama food crop farming.