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This study describes the socioeconomic characteristics of rice farmers, identifies the production system used by the farmers, compares the profitability of rice production systems, identifies the factors influencing the choice of production systems among the farmers as well as the constraints to rice production systems. A three-stage random sampling procedure was used to select 120 rice farmers on whom a set structured questionnaire was administered. Data was analysed using descriptive statistics and multinomial logistic regression model. Results show that 48.3%, 35% and 16.7% of the farmers cultivate rice using the upland, lowland and the combined production systems respectively. The findings also reveal variability in yield, profit and income across the rice production systems. The gross margins for lowland, upland and combined rice production systems were N65,735.73, N67,900.89 and N78,015.57 per hectare respectively. The factors that influenced the choice of upland production system relative to combined production system were age, household size, farming years and extension visits while the factors that influenced the choice for combined rice production system relative to lowland rice production system was income. Inadequate finance to purchase inputs, problem of pests and diseases, and unfavorable climatic conditions are the constraints faced by rice farmers in the upland, lowland and combined production systems. The combined production systems had the highest return per hectare. Therefore, the study recommends that farmers should be encouraged to choose the combined rice production system for optimum profitability of rice production.

The study was carried out for the purpose of assessing dry season garden egg production among small-scale farmers in Edu Local Government Area of Kwara State. The study adopted a snowballing sampling technique to sample 120 small-scale garden egg farmers. Five research questions were formulated to achieve the objectives of this research work. Descriptive statistics, cost and return analysis and OLS regression were used to analyze data collected. Cost and return analysis shows that the total revenue generated from the sales of irrigated garden egg produce for a typical farmer was N 36,596.5k while the total fixed cost (depreciated) and variable input cost amounted to 1,279.22K to give a net farm income (NFI) of N 24,582.68k. The OLS regression results revealed that the coefficients of farm size and household size were positive and significant at the 1% and 10% levels of probability respectively. This implies that an increase in farm size by 1 ha will increase the production of dry season garden egg by 1 percent. While the results of stochastic production frontier estimate show that the parameters of labour, fertilizer and farm size were highly significant, chemical use was significant at 10% level. This result implies that the farmers were technically efficient in the use of labour, fertilizer, chemical and farm size. Therefore, it is recommended that farmers should be encouraged to form cooperative societies, whereby they can join their resources together to provide a cost-effective irrigation system. Also, government authorities and other non-governmental organizations are encouraged to give farmers fertilizers and other chemicals at subsidized rates. There is a need for revitalization of the marketing board in Nigeria to further strengthen the marketing of agricultural produce and reduce marketing, storage and transportation problems.

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