Aims: This study examined the contribution of home gardening to household food security in IgabI Local Government Area of Kaduna State, Nigeria. Study Design: The study was designed to collect data from 120 home gardeners using well structured questionnaire and personal interview of the gardeners by the researchers. Place and Duration of Study: The study was carried out in Igabi Local Government Area of Kaduna State, Nigeria between June to July, 2019. Methodology: Multi-stage, purposive and simple random sampling techniques were used to select 120 respondents. The data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics such as means, frequency distribution, table, percentage and Likert – scale. Results: The results showed male (65.83%) in their active age (87.50% are within the age range of 21-50 years) and highly educated (92.50%) with good number of years of experience in home gardening, (80% had over 5years of experience) dominated the practice of home gardening in the study area. The study also revealed that they produced many types of crops, about 32. The most popular crops cultivated were; tomato 91.67%),cowpea(87.50%),groundnut(82.50%),okra(75.00%), pumpkin (70.83%), spinach (70.83%) maize(56.67%),millet(56.67%),sorghum(51.67%), pepper (50.00%) and sweet potato (50.00%).The Likert--scale  result showed that all the home gardeners household were food secure and the study established that home gardening does not only  contribute to their house hold food supply but also their income. However the home gardening in the study area is faced with problems such as pests attack and diseases infestation (80.00%) and lack of farm inputs such as seeds, fertilizers, pesticides and farm tools(75.00 %). Conclusion: The study revealed that home gardening contributed significantly to the household food security. It is therefore important to integrate home gardening into our farming system been a good tool for achieving food security among households and people  should also be sensitize to utilize empty plots  of land around their homestead for home gardens.

The study investigated the awareness and level of adoption of aquaculture management techniques in Igabi Local Government Area of Kaduna State, Nigeria. Purposive and random sampling techniques were adopted to select 60 fish farmers from the study area and data were collected from the fish farmers with the aid of well structured questionnaire administered to them face to face by the researchers and some trained enumerators. The data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics such as means score, percentage, tables, Likert scale and multiple regression analysis. The findings indicated that majority (60.00%) of the respondents were male, while 95.00% of the farmers were between the age of 21-60 years with 91.67% of the fish farmers educated and 61.67% of fish farmer are highly experienced with 6 years and above. The findings also revealed that majority of the farmers are aware of aquaculture management techniques in the study area with 70.00% getting information on these techniques from extension agents followed by 55.00% who relied on other fish farmers for relevant information about fish farming. The Likert scale result revealed that thirteen out of twenty – one aquaculture management techniques postulated were adopted while eight were not adopted implying that 61.90% of the postulated techniques were adopted by the fish farmers in the study area. The result of the regression analysis showed that level of awareness of techniques; access to credit facility and number of contact with extension agent were the three factors influencing adoption of aquaculture management techniques by the fish farmers in the study area. Lack of credits/ fund to adopt improved practice (75.00%), expensiveness of techniques (55.00%), complexity of techniques (55.00%), and lack of support from the government (51.67%), lack of adequate and proper information on these techniques (50.00%), lack of training (45.00%) and lack of awareness (33.33%) were identified as constraints affecting adoption of aquaculture management techniques in the study area. In conclusion, the study revealed that the farmers were aware and adopted good numbers of the aquaculture management techniques introduced to them The study recommends that farmers should establish cooperative society so that they can pool their resources and knowledge together in solving most of the problems identified.

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This study analyzed the allocative (cost) efficiency of maize production in Chikun Local Government Area of Kaduna State, Nigeria. Purposive and simple random sampling techniques were used to select 100 respondents. The data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics and stochastic frontier cost function model. Results revealed that 87% of the respondents were males with 99% of the farmers in their working age group of between 21-60 years. Most (81%) of them were married with 52% of the maize farmers having household size of more than 5 people. Also, 52.0% had post primary school education. The results of the maximum likelihood estimate parameters of the stochastic frontier cost function revealed that cost of maize output, cost of labour, cost of fertilizers, cost of seeds and cost of transportation were significant at 1% level of probability. The allocative efficiency indices revealed that allocative efficiency of the sampled farmers ranged from 1.05 to 3.25 with a mean of 1.31, implying that an average farmer in the study area has costs that are about 31% above the minimum defined by the frontier. This shows that 31% of their costs are wasted compared to the best farmers producing the same maize output using the same technology. The study therefore recommends that adequate farm inputs should be provided at low cost to the farmers and adequate training should be given to the maize farmers in the area of minimizing their expenses on farm inputs in order to avoid cost wastage and become more efficient in allocation of their resources.