Despite the high demand for sesame for both local and industrial consumption both at home and abroad, this potential moneyspinning cash crop commodity is almost an orphan crop in a country (Nigeria) that is facing economic crises owing to dwindling price of the mono-economy which it solely depends on for economic survival. The yarning of the present government for an alternative source of foreign earnings viz. cash crops motivated this research with the aim of advising policymakers to take the advantage of this money-spinning cash crop and unearth its' potential in order to bridge its' wide-gap foreign exchange earning deficit. Dated data sourced from FAO database for a spanned period of 56 years (1961-2017) covering production, area, yield and producer prices were used. The collected data were analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics with the aim of coming-up with valid inferences. The inferential statistics used were Growth model, Instability index, Instantaneous decomposition model, Hazell's decomposition model, Koyck's distributed lag model and ARIMA model. The empirical evidence showed that the performance of the sesame economy has not been impressive throughout the policy regime periods witnessed by the economy which owed to poor institutional supports by the policymakers which invariably affected the viability of this cash crop sub-sector, thus causing the country colossal revenue loss from foreign exchange earnings which run into millions of dollars as their exist potential readily available market for sesame products. Furthermore, the performance of the country's sesame production even in the next decade ahead will not be impressive if the internal sesame supply chain will be largely determined by the market forces as the current sesame market is been strangled by market imperfection owing to sharp market practices perpetuated by the middlemen in the supply chain. Therefore, the study recommends the need for provision of adequate institutional incentive supports by the major stakeholders in order to make the sesame sub-sector a potential foreign exchange earning which will serve as one of the viable potential alternatives to fossil fuel earning which is dwindle due to gradual paradigm shift from fossil fuel energy to green energy and the use of black gold (crude oil) as an instrument for political tango among the superpower blocks in the world.

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The experiments were conducted during winter season of 2011-12 and 2012-13 to evaluate heat stress response of wheat to paddy straw mulch and foliar nutrition of calcium and potassium in irrigated situation of mollisols of GBPUAT, Pantnagar, Uttarakhand, India. The treatments comprised of paddy straw mulch at 6 t ha -1 (just after sowing) and no mulch as the first factor and 6 foliar nutrition of Calcium Chloride (0.1%) and Potassium Chloride (0.2%) at booting and post-anthesis stage (one week after anthesis) along with two treatments having water spray with same spray volume i.e. 300 l ha -1 applied at booting and post-anthesis stages and no-spray as the second factor. All yield attributing characters were on higher side in mulch treated plots compared to non-mulch however the values were non-significant. Grain yield was significantly higher in mulched plots than non-mulch. Foliar spray of KCl at 0.2% at post-anthesis stage increased the productivity of wheat significantly compared to control and other foliar treatments. All other foliar treatments were at par with control with respect to grain yield of wheat. Climatic condition particularly the rainfall distribution and temperature regime had effect on crop productivity. The betterment of yield due to these treatments was due to better efficiency of PSII accentuated by higher value of Fv Fm-1. The effect of treatments did not influence phenology of crop.

The present research empirically determined the effect of IFAD programme on output and input commercialization among rice farmers in Niger State of Nigeria using field survey data elicited from 111 participants and 185 non-participants (90 and 95 non-participants from exposed and control groups respectively) drawn via multi-stage sampling design. The collected data were analyzed using Heckman's model. The empirical finding showed that the programme has no effect on output commercialization due to the poor market outlet as a result of no provision of established off-takers. However, the input support aspect of the programme mandate exerts an effect on the input commercialization among the farmers in the studied area. Furthermore, the poor incentive for extension agents, non-productive large household dominated by weaker people and one-way income traffic affected output commercialization among the rice farmers in the study area. Therefore, based on these, the programme should link the farmers with off-takers so as to sustain the viability of the programme even after its life span. In addition, to tackle poor extension contact, the farmers should effectively and efficiently use their social capital to introduce farmer to farmer extension approach by using private extension service as the technical support unit.

This paper empirically studied the growth pattern and supply response of root and tuber crops farmers in Nigeria using annual time series data sourced from FAO database. The data spanned from 1961-2014 and covered area, yield and price of yam, cassava and potatoes crops. The data were analyzed using the growth model, instability index, production decomposition analysis model and Engel-Granger two-step model. Findings showed that area was responsible for the paradigm shift in the production of selected root and tuber crops in Nigeria and not productivity which is very essential for sustainable agriculture due to shrinking of land resource owing to competing demand for its use as evidenced by incessant attacks of herdsmen on arable crop farmers. Generally, the farmers respond to price incentives in reallocating their area and adjusting their yield for all the selected crops. It was also observed that acreage and yield for all the selected crops had long-run association with the price and non-price factors; likewise, it established long-run equilibrium. So the need for price forecast mechanism to checkmate cob-web cycle which affects the balance between supply and demand for the root and tuber crops in the country and increase in production of crops achieved by increasing productivity of land-combination of technology and efficiency in the utilization of resources is recommended.